Micro-Shaping, Target Training, and Keeping the Learner at the Heart of Our Training Decisions
As trainers, we spend a great deal of time learning how to teach behavior. How do we select criteria? How finely should we split a behavior? When should we progress? How can we improve our timing and maintain a high rate of reinforcement?
These are important questions. But there’s another that deserves just as much attention: Should we teach the behavior in the first place?
This article is inspired by Apprentice Module Five of the DogNostics Dog Trainer Certificate Program, where we introduce and refine students’ knowledge and practical skills in micro-shaping. As students become increasingly skilled at constructing behavior through differential reinforcement of successive approximations, we also want them to think critically about what they choose to construct, and why.
Because becoming more technically proficient at training gives us more possibilities and also gives us more responsibility.
In micro-shaping, we become particularly attentive to small changes in behavior, observing subtle changes in topography – the physical form of behavior – and differentially reinforcing successive approximations toward our terminal behavior. We slice our criteria as finely as appropriate, recognizing that the number and size of those approximations will depend on the complexity of the behavior, the learner’s existing repertoire and learning history, and what their behavior tells us as training progresses.
The Behavior Is the Exercise; Shaping Is the Skill
A learner with an extensive shaping history may move rapidly through our anticipated approximations – or skip some altogether – while another may benefit from much finer slicing. Micro-shaping isn’t about creating the greatest possible number of tiny steps; it’s about selecting appropriate criteria and arranging the environment to support success, so that the learner can progress successfully toward the terminal behavior.
Within Apprentice Module Five, students have opportunities to micro-shape both paw and nose targets. The targets are useful behaviors, but they’re also vehicles through which students refine their own training skills. When shaping a paw target, for example, we might notice the subtle weight shift that occurs before a paw leaves the floor. When shaping a nose target, we might observe an eye movement toward the target, a slight head turn, extension of the neck, movement toward the target, and finally deliberate nose contact.
We don’t necessarily need to reinforce every one of those approximations. But being able to see them gives us options. Good shaping isn’t about making the learner fit our predetermined list of steps. We plan, we observe, and we adjust our criteria.
Why Teach a Nose Target?
A nose target can be extraordinarily versatile. We can teach a dog to touch our hand, but we can also teach targeting to a small transferable object, such as a sticky note or reusable sticky disc.
Once established, that little target can become a temporary piece of training information: “This is where the behavior happens.”
We might attach it to a cone and progressively increase distance as part of teaching a send-away. We can position it at nose height alongside our leg to help establish a precise position beside us, or centrally to help establish a Front position. We might put it on a door or drawer when teaching the dog to push it closed, or place it at a particular destination to help establish movement through the environment.
Once the new behavior has been established, the target can often be faded.
And targeting can also be enormous fun. Trick training can provide opportunities for mental and physical enrichment, problem-solving, movement, reinforcement, and enjoyable interaction between a dog and their person. Imagine teaching “Whisper in my ear.” We might initially place our small target beside our ear and reinforce nose contact, progressively develop the behavior, introduce the intended cue, and ultimately fade the visible target. To anyone watching, it may eventually look as though the dog has come over to whisper a secret.
Clever? Absolutely.
But now we arrive at the more important question: Does this particular dog want to put their face that close to ours?
Just Because We Can Train It, Should We?
This is a question we return to throughout the DogNostics Dog Trainer Certificate Program. Technical possibility doesn’t automatically make something a good training choice.
Consider another seemingly innocent trick: “Give me a kiss.” One dog may actively seek close facial contact with a familiar person and thoroughly enjoy that interaction. Another may find having their face close to a human face uncomfortable.
Could we potentially use targeting and positive reinforcement to train the second dog to perform the behavior? Perhaps. But why would we?
Positive reinforcement describes a behavioral process. It doesn’t, by itself, tell us how the learner feels about the experience. We need to consider the dog’s emotional as well as physical well-being.
What About Collaborative Care?
Targeting can also have applications in collaborative care. For example, we could teach a dog to maintain nose contact with a target attached to a wall while we briefly brush them. With carefully established contingencies, maintaining contact might communicate continued participation, while moving away results in the procedure stopping.
That can potentially give the dog something extremely important: a voice and meaningful control over what happens to their body.
But simply having trained a target doesn’t make the procedure collaborative. We must observe the whole dog. A dog could maintain a well-reinforced nose target while showing other behavioral indications that they are uncomfortable. Nose contact should never become permission for us to stop paying attention to everything else the dog is communicating.
Nor should we assume that a nose target is necessarily the best option. Perhaps another start-button behavior provides clearer communication for that dog. Perhaps a comfortably positioned lick mat offers a more enjoyable experience during a particular procedure. Perhaps we need to change the procedure itself.
The question shouldn’t be “How can I make the dog stay there while I do this?” It should be: “How can I arrange this so the dog can participate comfortably, communicate clearly, and exercise meaningful choice?”
Positive Reinforcement Is Only Part of the Picture
As force-free trainers, the procedures we choose matter enormously. But ethical training isn’t defined solely by the absence of aversive training tools or by our use of positive reinforcement.
We also need to consider why we’re teaching the behavior, whether it offers a genuine benefit or enjoyable enrichment for the learner, whether it is physically appropriate, and how the learner appears to feel about participating. Does it require contact, proximity, movement, or positioning the learner may find uncomfortable? Can they readily choose not to participate? Are we listening when they do?
These questions apply whether we’re teaching a nose target, paw target, recall, husbandry behavior, positioning skill, sport behavior, or entertaining trick. They apply to everything we train.
Training Skill and Ethical Judgment Develop Together
As trainers become more skilled, they become capable of constructing increasingly sophisticated behavior. We learn to split criteria more effectively, observe finer changes in topography, improve our reinforcement mechanics, and build behaviors that once seemed extraordinarily complex.
But our development as trainers shouldn’t only make us better at getting behavior. It should make us better at deciding which behavior is worth getting, for this individual learner, in this particular context.
So, by all means, refine your shaping skills. Teach useful behaviors. Teach clever behaviors. Teach wonderfully silly tricks simply because your learner genuinely enjoys doing them with you.
But occasionally ask yourself:
Why am I teaching this? How is my learner experiencing it? And just because I can train it, should I?
Great training isn’t only about what we can teach. It’s about using our skills in ways that support the learner’s physical and emotional well-being, respect their communication, and provide meaningful opportunities for choice, agency, and control.
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