Catch Them In The Act: A Capturing GameLast week we were feeding the litter as a group, to build up enthusiasm for eating food as soon as it’s offered, eating their fill quickly, and build good eating habits. This week we will:

1.Introduce the idea that crates are not just for napping.

2.Reinforce puppies for entering the crates with treats and social interaction.3. Start crate feeding.

Catch Them In The Act (A Reinforcement Game)If the back side of your pen crates faces out, such that you can interact with, and give treats to, the puppies from the back side, you can take advantage of that.

Here is how to play:1.Near your weaning pen, place some small treats suitable for your puppies size and preferences (I usually hang a small bucket on the outside of the weaning pen). I use spray cheese because it easily reaches through the bars, or you can use a feeding syringe with yogurt, or any small and age appropriate treat or kibble.2.Whenever you walk near or by the weaning pen, go to the back of the crates and offer a treat and/or praise, to any puppy that is inside a crate.3.If your treat, or praise, is reinforcing to the puppy, you should notice puppies moving into the crate when you are moving around the weaning pen. Continue to offer treats and praise to puppies who choose to enter a crate.ExceptionsWe will not be luring the puppies to enter the crate using food or attention. The point of this exercise is to “capture” the puppy inside the crate and reinforce that choice. A secondary goal is to increase breeder observation skills, so we get better at noticing puppies engaging in desirable behaviors.You are not really trying to “get” your puppies to enter the crates, by calling or luring; you simply noticing that a puppy choose to enter a crate on it’s own, and then reinforcing that choice. It seems a subtle difference to use, but not to your puppy. By reinforcing for choices we like AFTER the puppy has made that choice, we build an operant puppy, one who works confidently and calmly, from it’s own initiative. If we lure, our puppy is just following food, or our voice, and not using their own mind and behaviors to affect consequences.An operant puppy learn how their behavior choices influence their consequences, so they learn to make “better” choices (ie the ones that bring good things) without being bribed or cajoled. A good rule of thumb is: Food appears after behavior = CapturingFood appears before the behavior and is used to “get” the behavior = Luring or bribingException: What you feed is what you get.Positive Reinforcement is powerful and efficient, that means if you feed a puppy who is vocalizing in a crate you will teach the puppy that what you want is “vocalize inside a crate” and you will get more vocalizing AND more crate time. We only want crate time, so be careful to never feed a puppy who is inside the crate AND vocalizing. Play Red Light/Green Light (in Resources) in this case. So, in a nutshell, if a puppy is barking, biting at the wire, or something else we would not want the puppy to do in the new home, we will either: 1. Just ignore the puppy and go about whatever you were doing. Easy peasy2. Wait nearby and when the puppy stops the undesirable behavior go over and feed.Remember, it’s not about the puppy being “bad”, they are just being puppies but more about not accidentally reinforcing behavior we don’t want to send into the new home. How to play if your crate backs are not accessible.If your crates back up to a wall and so are not accessible for this game you can still reinforce your puppies for entering and spending time in their crate. 1. Be sure your Success Station is nearby and stocked with shelf stable treats that are large enough to be easy for your puppy to find, but still safe for a young puppy to eat. 2. If it’s helpful, install a small cup or bowl inside the crate, a coop cup, or small bowl will work. 3. When you see a puppy inside a crate, walk over and either reach in the door and feed a puppy and walk on, or drop a treat in from the top of the crate, either into the small bowl, or so it drops near a puppy. It’s a bit less convenient this way, so don’t worry yourself too much, just as your working around the crates take a minute to notice and reinforce any puppy who is hanging out in a crate. Remember, creating a positive emotional response to the crate is a bit like filling a jar with pennies. One penny won’t help, and a quarter, or even a dollar coin won’t either, it’s coin after coin after coin dropped in over time that fills the jar. Much of our crate conditioning work is like those pennies, we are creating a big, heavy, thing one small deposit at a time.

Voluntary Duration: Catching Puppies In The Act Game (Elective)