When I first went to dog training school, I encountered a concept that, little did I know, would change my outlook on training. This concept is what is referred to as errorless learning, or “clean loops.” When I first learned about this concept, I applied it to working with Louie, the dog I trained during my dog training certification course. But it wasn’t until horse trainer Alexandra Kurland discussed “loopy training” at Clicker Expo that I really began to understand what clean loops are and their importance in training. This month I will be exploring clean loops in a four-part series! In this week’s post, part one of the series, I will dive into what clean loops are and briefly explain why they are so important.
What are Clean Loops?
When you work with your puppy using a clicker, you may notice a pattern. This pattern generally goes like this: antecedent (something that triggers a behavior), behavior, consequence. This pattern is known as the ABCs of training. I will talk more about these ABCs in next week’s post, but for today I want to point out that those three things, the antecedent (which is what triggers behavior), the behavior, and the consequence (in this case, positive reinforcement, or negative punishment) are the parts that make up your training loop. This loop is repeated over and over again during training. For example, you hold out your hand, palm up, towards your puppy (antecedent), your puppy leans toward it to investigate (behavior), and your click and reinforce (consequence).
Now, imagine you are training. You hold out your hand; your puppy leans in. At this point, you suddenly realize you forgot to put your clicker in the correct position, and you end up fumbling to grab it, then you click and reinforce. It might have only taken you a second or less to grab your clicker; nonetheless, it interrupted the processes or “dirtied” your training loop. This example is only of many that can dirty a loop. Most things that cause a loop to get dirty are things like the dog hesitating out of uncertainty, you losing your footing, an unexpected distraction for your dog, and more.
This brings me to clean loops. If a dirty loop is one that has these “hiccups” interrupting the process, a clean loop is one that smoothly transitions from one step to the next without delay or “mistakes.” These clean loops are also known as “errorless learning.” Whether this process actually results in no errors is a common debate in the animal training world, but the clean loops do noticeably decrease the number of mistakes on the learner’s part, offering a highly impactful advantage over the more common “dirty” loops.
Why are Clean Loops so Important?
If such an interruption as your dog’s hesitation, a missed click, or even a delayed click can occur in such a short time, how do they cause problems? To answer this question, think about playing basketball. I don’t know if you have ever gone out and tried to shoot hoops with a friend, but just for a moment, imagine this. You have the ball. You line up your shot. You take it. But the moment you move to release the ball, you hit a small patch of water and slip just slightly. Not even enough to cause you to fall, but just enough to cause a mistake to be made. The small slip is just enough to cause the ball to hit the rim rather than going over it, bouncing off the backboard, and dropping into the net.
Now, imagine you have never played basketball in your life. It is completely new to you. Each time you go up to take the shot, you slip just a little and miss. Does this slip help you learn or hinder your learning? Even if you miss by a mile, that slip causes frustration and interrupts the flow of movement enough to throw you off and distract you. When you are initially learning, mistakes like that can significantly impact how clean your shots are or even if you make the shot at all. Later, when you have learned how to take a shot, you can learn to do so even when you slip. But when you are just starting out, a slip can add more time and more mistakes to a situation that would have been so much easier without the slippery spot on the court getting in your way. If that loop had been clean, you would have been able to repeat it over and over again until you developed the muscle memory and got “in the zone.”
In short, clean loops keep the learner moving forward toward their goal with little to no interruption. It keeps your learning momentum and rate of reinforcement (for us humans, this is a success) high, creating more opportunities to practice the correct behavior. The more correct repetitions, the faster learning will go and the more effective it will be.
To learn more about clean loops and how they can help you take your dog’s training to the next level, make sure to come back next week for part two of the clean loops series!
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