Animal Training Academy

Behavioral momentum is … akin to creating a “training flow” for your learner, where you offer cues they’re highly proficient in before introducing something potentially more challenging. It’s similar to cycling, where you begin with a downhill stretch to build up speed, making it easier to pedal up the next hill.

In training, you would ask your learner to perform behaviors they consistently execute well and enjoy (this will be different for each individual learner). Then, as you start to build a high rate of reinforcement, you introduce a new or more challenging cue. The goal is to make it more likely they’ll follow through with the more difficult task because they’ve already gained some behavioural momentum.

Behavioural Momentum: Your 5 Step Plan

1. Identify High-Probability Cues: Start by identifying a few cues that your learner responds to consistently and with ease. These are your “high-probability behaviors”.
2. Engage in a Warm-Up Routine: Use these high-probability cues to get your learner into the rhythm of successfully offering cued behaviour [and thus creating a high rate of R+].
3. Introduce the Challenge: After a series of successful high-probability cues, introduce the cue for the challenging [cue] -behavior you want to work on.
4. Brief Pause and Refocus if Needed: If your learner misses the cue or struggles with the challenging behavior, briefly pause the training [3 seconds]. During this pause, both you and your learner want to remain calm and focused. This short break hopeful minimises frustration or stress before the next cue is offered.
5. Return to High-Probability Cues and [if appropriate] Retry: After the pause, revert to a few more high-probability cues to rebuild momentum and rate of R+. Once your learner successfully completes these, if appropriate, attempt the challenging behavior again. This cycle of moving from easier to harder tasks will hopefully help in gradually building your dog’s ability to tackle the new challenge.

Remember, the key to behavioural momentum is keeping the training experience positive and success-oriented with a high rate of reinforcement.

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Example; Let’s consider a practical example with a learner, incorporating the concept of behavioural momentum.

Imagine you’ve training a dog named Max to perform a new behaviour – rolling over. During a training session, Max misses the cue to roll over. Instead of immediately trying the roll over command again, you briefly pause – this is where you withhold the reinforcer, just for a moment [3 seconds max]. It’s important that Max remains calm and focused on you during this pause.

After this short pause, you ask Max to perform a few behaviours he knows really well and performs consistently [these are your high-probability behaviors]. Max does these easily and gets his reinforcers, which keeps his motivation and attention high. Then, after this little success streak, you cue ask for the ‘roll over’ again.

By preceding the challenging ‘roll over’ cue with easier, well-practiced cues, you’re utilising behavioural momentum. This approach can help Max stay engaged and increase the likelihood that he will successfully ‘roll over’ on cue next time. The key is to keep Max focused and build up his confidence with the easier behaviours before reattempting the harder one.

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Our goal at ATA is to help you avoid stress and frustration. Instead, we want to see you grow your training skills and knowledge. In short, we aspire to see you gain confidence in yourself as a trainer and lead a fulfilling life, positively impacting the lives of the animal and human learners you work with.

And of course we hope this blog has been helpful in our goal, and we would love to hear how you incorporate Behavioural Momentum into your training. Please comment below and let us know!

Best Regards
Ryan Cartlidge
Animal Training Academy