What is a TWO-FER and why to wait on them Copy
What is a Two-fer???
It’s when we ask for two or more behaviors and we reward at the end.
If we are purposefully intending to combine two or more behaviors, it’s called a Behavior Chain. A Behavior Chain is two or more behaviors cued at the beginning and rewarded at the end. A good example of a desired behavior chain could be the Heel behavior. Heel should mean to the dog to come into your personal space > move to your left side facing the same direction as you > sit > and look at you; 4 behaviors all rewarded at the end. BUT each behavior is taught individually and then chained together through a specific training process.
An undesirable behavior chain could be when your dog jumps on you and you then ask for sit and reward the sit. You would be rewarding the jumping plus sitting behaviors.
In this segment we want to help you train individual behaviors and preserve the strength of each behavior.
Examples of a Two-Fer:
- You want to work on a Hand Target but your dog is looking away, when you call his name and he looks at you, Mark and Reward for the attention that you asked for and THEN proceed to work the Hand Target. In this example, you would be preserving the integrity of the Name Response behavior and then have the opportunity to work on the Hand Target behavior.
- You want to work on the Leave It behavior but your dog is in the other room doing something else. When you recall him to you and he does come to you, Mark and Reward the recall and THEN proceed to work the Leave It training.
Beginning training means reinforcing each individual behavior as you have asked for it and as it happens.
