Rewarding small steps towards a final behaviour, gradually raising the criteria until the dog performs the full thing.
Shaping is a training method where you reward small steps towards a final behaviour, rather than waiting for the whole behaviour to happen at once. Instead of guiding the dog with a lure, you let them offer behaviour on their own and reward the parts that move in the right direction.
It's a slower method than luring, but it produces a dog who thinks and problem-solves rather than one who simply follows a treat.
Say you want to teach a dog to touch a target with their paw. A shaping sequence might go:
Each step raises the bar slightly. If the dog gets stuck at one stage, you drop back to the last step they could do and rebuild from there.
Timing is everything with shaping. A slow marker or reward can reinforce the wrong moment, so a clicker or a sharp verbal marker is usually used to mark the exact instant the dog does something useful.
Raising the criteria too fast is the most common error. If a dog stops offering behaviour altogether, it's usually a sign the step just asked for was too big a jump from the last one.
No, but it helps. A clicker or a short verbal marker like "yes" gives more precise timing than a treat alone, which matters when you're rewarding tiny increments of movement.
Capturing rewards a behaviour the dog already does naturally, in full, the moment it happens. Shaping builds a behaviour gradually from small pieces the dog hasn't necessarily offered before.
The dog has to work out what's being rewarded through trial and error, rather than being physically guided. That takes more repetitions, but tends to create a more confident, thinking dog.
Rewarding a behaviour the dog already does naturally, at the exact moment it happens, without luring or guiding.
Using a treat or toy to guide a dog into a position or movement, then fading the food out so the dog responds to a cue instead.
Using a specific sound or word to pinpoint the exact moment a dog does something worth rewarding, bridging the gap before the treat arrives.
