"300 Peck" - A Simple Method for Increasing Duration or Distance - Part I

When we want to increase distance or duration, we need to find a way to increase distance or duration while still setting our dogs up to succeed at least 80% of the time.

Reprinted with permission from http://www.PositivePetzine.com

"300 Peck" was a method that came from training pigeons to peck 300 times in the lab, via horse-training and was adapted successfully for dog training by a few people. My favourite variation comes courtesy of Sue Ailsby (http://www.dragonflyllama.com).

What is "300 Peck" used for?

When we want to increase distance or duration, we need to find a way to increase distance or duration while still setting our dogs up to succeed at least 80% of the time.

Let's say we want our dog to "sit-stay" for 30 seconds. If we asked our dog to "sit" for 30 seconds without any prior training, then he would almost certainly fail within about 2 seconds and we would have nothing to reinforce. Nothing would be learned except that "stay" is meaningless.

Another example might be sending our dog around a pole 10' away. If we sent our dog around the pole 10' away with no prior training, chances are our dog would either sit there with a blank expression, or find something else to do.

"300 Peck" helps us bridge those gaps in a manner which is easy for us to implement.