Shaping Complex Behaviors

Shaping builds a complex behavior by rewarding successive approximations — small steps toward the goal. To teach a dog to close a door, you mark and reward looking at the door, then moving toward it, then touching it with the nose, then pushing it shut.

Each step is mastered before you add the next. The dog is never told "no"; behaviors below the current step simply earn nothing. That keeps the session feeling like a problem-solving game rather than a compliance test, so the dog stays engaged and keeps offering new behaviors.