Modifier cues (teaching the dog abstract concepts)
by Chris Puls

When I attended the ClickerExpo in Cleveland in 2007, I learned from Ken Ramirez about all the different “concepts” dogs can be taught.  These he called “modifier cues.”  Abstract things like “the larger one” or “the smaller one,” move to the right (or left), the higher item or the lower item.  And more difficult concepts like round, square, mimic what that other dog just did and numbers/quantities as in “go to the box with three.” Very fascinating stuff!  The funny thing was that after Ken taught some dogs these concepts, he was told by other professional trainers that dogs couldn’t learn these types of things!  These are not easy for the dog, so Ken says it’s almost a requirement that the dog have a solid base of basic training that has been taught using reward based (clicker) methods to make this easier for the dog.

He opened his session with a detailed story of a search and rescue dog he trained. I’ll make this as brief as possible, but his humor in telling of the fire fighters reactions to the dog’ response was just precious! :-)  The situation was a partially collapsed building into which a fire fighter had entered, looking for the building blue prints.  Then there was another collapse that trapped his legs when he was in the room with the book of blue prints, and while his hands weren’t trapped the book was across the room and he couldn’t reach it.  In telling others where he was, his radio went dead.  He was in a location that a human body couldn’t reach (not enough space in the rubble.)  The dog was sent in and used her nose to find him (and carry a radio in.)  Once contact was reestablished with the fire fighter, he was directed by the trainer over the radio on how to use the modifier cues to direct the dog to the book of blue prints and to bring them to the trapped fire fighter so he could relay the info to the rescuers outside.  She was first directed to target the far wall, told to target to her right, moved more to the right, go “paws up” on a book shelf, target up (move her nose upward) to the next shelf, target her nose to the left to touch the correct book, told to “bring” and she brought the correct book!

So you want to teach YOUR dog…

Ken said to start the training with some of the easier concepts, such as left and right and high/low, then progress to the harder ones.  As the dog does more concept training, it starts to truly understand concepts and will pick-up the more complex ones faster than if you had tried to start with something like mimic or quantities.

I’ll be explaining how to teach your dog left and right so the dog can learn to be more useful and you can amaze your friends. A dog that understands "left" and "right" has a terrific skill for many competition venues including agility, herding, mushing, water dog, and retrieving. This understanding would also be handy walking on trails—and service dog owners could think of a dozen or more applications for "left" and "right."

First you’ll teach the dog in close proximity to you, then you’ll add the increased difficulty of distance (sending the dog to a target way from you.)  Ken said to teach the concept and its opposite at the same time.  So instead of working only on cuing “left” and getting that solid and then teaching “right,” he said it is clearer to the dog is you work on teaching them both in the same session.

Remember, it is always the DOG’S right or left, not relative to the direction YOU are facing.  So if your dog is facing you, your right hand will be the dog’s left.  If you are easily confused, you might want to hold out or set out the targets just far enough away from you that the dog has to turn around to get to them (so you are both facing the same direction.)

Starting out with a simple exercise:

Read through the “beyond basic targeting” article and have your dog fluent in at least the nose target on cue before you start this training.  You are not limited to just a nose target however.  You could teach the dog to go out and smack something with his paw or go around an object set to the left or an object on the right (or circle around an object going left or going right.)  But for this article, I’ll be saying “target” to indicate what ever behavior you choose as the targeting behavior.

Set up two identical objects.  This could be two bowls, two traffic cones, two whatever.  You want them the same at this point so the dog doesn’t learn that one type of object is called left and another type is called right.  It is helpful if you can put a treat in or under the object the first few times to help the dog be motivated to go to the object.  These objects will be set fairly close together (about two to three feet apart) and only a very short distance away from you (arms length or so.)

You could also start by using your hands as targets if you remember your right hand is “left” and your left hand is “right” when the dog is facing you.

If at any time in the training, the dog goes to the wrong target, simply ignore that call him back and have him try again.

Using the objects (I’ll say cones) simply point your dog to the correct cone, click when he targets it and deliver the reward.  You can have the dog come back to you for the reward, or toss the reward near the cone.  Mix it up and point to each cone approximately an equal number of times.  Your goal before moving on is to have the dog solidly targeting the cone you point to each time (correctly at least 8 out of 10 tries in a row.) 

Increasing difficulty

When the dog is able to do this, you’ll increase the difficulty by increasing the distance slightly. Move the cones a little farther away from you and a little farther apart.  Moving them apart actually makes it easier for the dog to tell which one you are pointing to.  We only want to make one part harder at a time.  In this case, it will be the distance from you.  Repeat the above exercise.

Now you can start adding the cue.  You want the verbal cue to be delivered BEFORE the hand signal.  The dog will then start to anticipate which way you are about to point as he learns the cues.  That’s what we want!  After several repetitions with the verbal cue, 1 second pause before the hand signal, try withholding the hand signal to see if the dog will get it right without it.  If he gets it wrong twice in a row, go back to more practice with both signals.  When the dog is getting it right 8 out of 10 tries in a row on just the verbal cue, you are ready to progress.

Starting over – generalizing

You probably don’t want this cue to only be associated with cones.  So you’ll want to pick new objects (still the same) and start over.  The dog should be able to go through the steps pretty rapidly.  Don’t add the cue until the dog gets to that step in the process as outlined above.  When you start over, act as though you are just starting this training.  When the dog becomes fluent with these new objects, try another new set of objects.  By the time the dog is fluent with three different kinds of objects, he should understand that it doesn’t matter what object it is, the cue is only related to their placement.

Add more distance

Now you can add more distance.  Start again at the “increasing difficulty section and move the objects a bit farther away from you and farther apart.  Work through that section again.  Then try moving the objects closer to each other and use only your verbal cue.  If the dog gets it wrong twice in a row, you progressed too fast.  Go back a step or two to where the dog was getting it right and do more practice before making it harder again.

Now you can repeat the “add more distance” section until the dog is going as far as you’d like them to go.  Each time you increase the distance a little, work through all the steps again.  Having the dog practice getting it right will never hurt!  Rushing too fast and having the dog get confused or be guessing is not what you want.

Real World Uses

If your dog does a formal retrieve, you can set out two dumbbells and send him “take it- left”  or “take it- right”  Start by helping him with your hand signal, but see if you can fade that to only use a verbal cue.

If your dog does agility, set up two obstacles and cue “jump left” or “jump right”  then mix them up: “Jump –right” or “tunnel left”

If your dog likes to fetch things out of the water, but doesn’t always see where they landed (or for hunt retriever dogs) you can use the left and right cues to direct the dog to the toy/game.

Once you have these cues in your “bag of cues” you’ll be surprised how useful they are!  And it won’t be too difficult to figure out how to use these steps to teach your dog the next step of “high vs. low.”  Left and right, higher vs lower are constants.  Left is always to the left of the dog.  Higher is always above the dog.  Other concepts are more abstract.

Other cues: 

After your dog is well versed in the above 4 cues, then you can work on more abstract concepts like large and small.  Start with something that is much larger than the other object.  Work on both cues at the same time and switch the objects location and what the object is made of frequently to get generalization.  Fade the helping prompts as soon as you can.  He said you’ll see the moment the light bulb goes on.  You can make it harder by having the objects more similar in size.

The more of these “concepts” you teach the dog, the easier it is for them to “grasp” the concepts of abstract cues.

He also talked about mimic behavior (copying another animal’s behavior when cued to do so or finding a matching item.)  An example would be to show the dog a shoe or specific toy and ask them to find the matching item.  Similar to scent matching, but done visually instead. The mimic cue was also used to teach dolphins new behaviors.  The dolphin learned a “mimic” cue and was cued to copy the behaviors another dolphin was doing.  They did 4 or 5 known behaviors in a row (things both dolphins already knew.)  Then they cued the 1^st dolphin to do a behavior it knew but the 2^nd dolphin didn’t. The 2^nd dolphin was cued to “mimic” and he got very close to a complex behavior of a vertical spin on the first attempt!  This video was really fascinating to watch.  I have known that dogs learn by watching other dogs and this reinforced that.  He did say you need a very savvy animal that is well versed in “concepts” in order to use a mimic cue to get new complex behaviors from copying another animal.