Shaping: Day 3

Now that Swanson knows that sniffing the bar will earn her one food pellet and is performing this behavior fairly often, I start reinforcing her intermittently for sniffing the bar for a few minutes. While I was reinforcing her intermittently, I was also looking out for the next behavior I want her to perform--placing one or both of her front paws on the bar. After the first 5 minutes or so, Swanson put her hands on the bar, so I rewarded her. After she put her hands on the bar and I rewarded her a few times for that, I stopped rewarding her when she sniffed the bar and only rewarded her when she put one or both paws on the bar. By the end of our 30 minute session, Swanson was consistently placing her paws on the bar, and she even pressed it a few times!