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Dog Swordfighting - Lesson 6: Skill Stitching

  • Writer: Christopher Tiller
    Christopher Tiller
  • May 8
  • 4 min read

So let's recap:



This is a good! It's (probably) most of the work involved in the skill as-is. From here I mostly need to teach him how to move around with and attack with the sword.


Given that this set of skills is super important, I'm going to be rehearsing it a ton. I also feel like it's time to combine all of them into one and put it on cue.


Why combine them?


Personally, I like having cues for individual discrete actions. I don't have a particularly strong reason for doing it that way, but I also don't really have a good reason to not do it that way. It works for us just fine.


But here? I have the opposite case.


  1. I don't need to distinguish grabbing and holding. More words, more places to screw up.

  2. Any time he has the sword I want his default to be "hold it unless stated otherwise".


Even though we taught them separately, (making it easier for us to learn), I want them to be treated as one fluid action. For this action, we're going to:


  1. Identify the sword

  2. Grab the sword

  3. Pick up the sword

  4. Hold the sword


You like diagrams? Cause you're going to start getting some diagrams.
You like diagrams? Cause you're going to start getting some diagrams.

In practice 1, 2, and 3 are probably going to be bunched together anyways, and 4 is what I'm selecting for after 1-3.


tl;dr: "I'm going to shape Missile picking up the sword and constantly increase the duration until it's where I want it to be". Ha! Look at that! We came full circle! Training is an adventure!


So here's what it looks like:


You have a good idea how this looks by now, right?

So that's great! After that work just combining the skills, it looks a little more like this:


Yes this is important I promise.
Yes this is important I promise.

Now we like it, we can consistently elicit the same behavior, now to add a verbal cue!


Adding the cue


At this point the skill is exactly what I want, which makes it a good time to name it.


If you noticed, I never at any point until now gave him a cue that meant "identify the sword, grab it, and hold on for dear life". The only words I intentionally used were:


  • His release - "Okay"

  • Take a thing from me - "Take it"



The release was used when I was shaping. "You're free to do whatever you want". It got us from point a to b.


"Take it" was used when I wanted him to take the toys from me when I was building his hold. I never really added a formal "hold" cue either. It seemed to be easier for him when I just shut up.


Neither of those means "grab your sword and prepare for combat".


Why didn't you use the cue earlier?


The skill wasn't ready! Keeping it short, a cue signifies to do the thing. If they do the thing, I would reinforce said behavior, increasing the probability that they'll do that thing again once that cue is used again. If I do this too early I risk the meaning of the cue being unclear, screwing with my probabilities.


Because of that, I wait until the skill is where I want to be, and then I add the cue.


tl;dr: "Only name it if you love it". While I'm building a skill up I do not love it.


But then how do we choose a good cue?


Choosing the cue


For a good cue, I need to make sure it

  • Sounds unique (doesn't conflict too much with other words/sounds)

  • Is short (can be said quickly)


Some of these can be worked around, (Missile does have a functioning brain after all, I think), but I'll do my best.


I have a few options that fulfill these criteria, but I'll just choose "sword". "Engarde" and "wield" just sounded weird, and saying something like: "Go forth dog, and grab your sword." Is too sick for me to pass up. *


The process


It's pretty straightforward.

  • Say the cue

  • Elicit the behavior

  • Phase out the "elicit" part.


Afterwards, it should look something like this:


See? I told you it was important.
See? I told you it was important.

So now we have everything we need to know, let's go!

The barks are the brain noises.

And there we have it! This is the hard, boring work out of the way. Next time we're going to finally get started swordfighting! If you had fun reading this, (or just enjoy seeing us training), join us over on DogKatas! We have dozens of free, bite-sized exercises to do!


If you've been following along, I'd love to hear about your progress! What successes and struggles have you had?


Until then, see you next time. Happy Training!


* Really, even if the cue doesn't work out you can just change it anyways, so NBD. Annoying to do, but still NBD.

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