Methods
Method
Participant
The subject is a four year old male canine, who will be referred to as Bailey. Bailey is an American Labrador Retriever with a yellow coat. Bailey has been “begging” for all four years of his life, any time there is food being prepared, eaten, put away, taken out, or held while he is in the room. In the past, this behavior has been controlled to the extent that Bailey will lay down when people are sitting and eating.
Materials
In this project, there are two types of positive reinforcers being used; primary and secondary. The primary reinforcer will be a cheese and bacon flavored treat. This reinforcer was chosen based on an 11 trial preference assessment conducted previous to the start of this project. The secondary reinforcement used will be praise, this includes a higher tone of voice while saying “good boy” and petting him. I will be keeping a chart, both in the open concept kitchen and living room shared with 3 roommates, and my bedroom. These charts will track the instances of begging behavior displayed each day (period of 24 hours), myself and the 3 other roommates will collaborate on tracking this data. One more material that is important to this project is a dog bed. There is one in each room that this project is taking place. One week is dedicated to collecting baseline information.
Setting
The setting for this project will be in my townhome, specifically the open concept living room/kitchen, along with my bedroom. In the open concept living room/kitchen is where the most food is handled and available to Bailey, there is a dog bed set up in this area which will be his placement when behavior modification begins. In my bedroom, the food stored in this room is in the closet. I frequently eat these foods compared to how often I used the kitchen, making this another ideal setting to include. Located under my bed is a 3ft x 4ft area where Bailey’s bed is, this includes blankets and pillows for comfort. This will be his placement when behavior modification begins.
Procedure
(A) The behavior referred to as “begging” (“beg”or “begged” will also be used based on context for the sentence) will be decreased by 95%. This number will be determined after the baseline is calculated. “Begging” is defined as; any instance where the subject (a canine), Bailey, is standing, laying, or sitting next to an individual while staring at an individual is preparing, eating, putting away, taking out, or holding food. Bailey will be allowed to leave the placement when he is given the “go ahead” command. This behavior is most likely to occur when food is present. The antecedent used to control this behavior would be bringing Bailey to his placement (his bed) immediately before food is being prepared, eaten, put away, taken out, or held and being told to “stay”. The target behavior is Bailey staying at his placement (in his bed) until he is given the release command “go head”. (The “go head” and “stay” command have already been learned prior to this).
(B) Frequency and Accuracy will be used to measure the behavior of begging each day (24 hour periods, the 24 hour period begins at 7am). The method used to record this behavior will be Discrete Trial Training.
(C) A preference assessment for the treat given to Bailey is used to determine which treat could be most effective. To collect baseline data, this behavior will be observed and the frequency of the behavior will be recorded for one week (7 24 hour periods beginning at 7am).
(D) Prompting Fading
The target behavior is Bailey staying at his placement (in his bed) with the “stay” command being given only one time any time there is food being prepared, eaten, put away, taken out, or held until he is given the release command “go head”.
One “stay” command right after he is in his placement is the final desired stimulus.
The starting stimuli is additional “stay” commands throughout food being prepared, eaten, put away, taken out, or held, along with eye contact and the hand motion that is already known as “stay” to Bailey (this the right hand raised with the palm out towards Bailey).
Decreasing prompt steps:
Step One. 3 additional verbal “stay” commands, while making eye contact with Bailey and using the “stay” hand signal with only 3 of the verbal “stay” commands (totaling 4 verbal “stay” commands)
Step Two. 3 additional verbal “stay” commands, while making eye contact with Bailey and using the “stay” hand signal with only 2 “stay” commands (totaling 4 verbal “stay” commands)
Step Three. 2 additional verbal “stay” commands, while making eye contact with Bailey and using the “stay” hand signal with only 2 verbal “stay” commands (this should be totaling 3 verbal “stay”)
Step Four. 2 additional verbal “stay” commands, while making eye contact with Bailey and using the “stay” hand signal with only 1 verbal “stay” command (this should be totaling 3 verbal “stay” commands)
Step Five. 1 additional verbal “stay” command, while making eye contact with Bailey and using the “stay” hand signal with only 1 verbal “stay” command (this should be totaling 2 verbal “stay” commands)
Step Six. 1 additional “stay” command, while NOT making eye contact with Bailey and using the “stay” hand signal (this should be totaling 2 verbal “stay” commands)
Step Seven (Final Desired Behavior). Only the initial singular verbal “stay” command
Criteria to advance: 2 consecutive correct responses
Criteria to regress: 1 incorrect response
Learning criterion: 3 consecutive correct responses on step seven (the final desired behavior)
Provide positive reinforcement (one bacon and cheese treat and praise) after the release command is given for each step.
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