# Applying the theory of limited hold to produce low latency responses.



## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

I am looking for anyone who has toyed with the theory of Limited hold with any success. primarly to produce low latency responses. 

I having been studying everything I can find on it from pigeon training to karen pyrors do not shoot the dog. Now Karen offers a method....but to me it just makes no sense to me that a dog will be understand what exactly she is rewarding. I have been trying it, maybe it's my lack of understanding or my doubt in the method. But the idea of limited hold makes sense to me. It's just communicating it to the dog I am having trouble with.

Primarly I am trying to speed up responses on the dumbbell retrieve. 

I appreciate any insight. I am not so concerned with just making the dog faster in the retrieve. What I am really concerned with is learning how to use limited hold in my training.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

It is sound philosophy.

I get the doubting though, your thinking ...does the dog really know it is being rewarded for doing it 1-2 seconds faster? it will over time.

Are you looking to to lower the latency? or bring the speed up? just curious..

Probably not your thing, but ecollar worked wonders with latency and speed for me, very low stim..

combined with similar philosophy on rewarding for quick response and speed, and witholding reward for latency and slower speed, I did not know the technical terms for it, but did it in a similar fashion. Starting with very short distances.

hope someone else can say more about it, I imagine it will transfer to other behaviors as well, once cemented.


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## Ben Colbert (Mar 9, 2010)

I have never had much sucess with it. I attempted to use it to speed up responses to commands. I much prefer the e-collar for my needs. I may have done similar to what Joby does. 

I.e. my dog would be very lazy in coming around to the correct position after an about turn. I would stim at super low (3 out of 127) as soon as I started my turn and turn it off when he was in position. His increase in speed is obvious even with out an e-collar on.

I've alo sucessfully used "beat the correction" approach on working outs. "Aus" and almost immeadiately correct the dog, before it even has a chance to out. Thus the dog starts think "if I only do it a bit faster I'll avoid the correction". This approach may not work on all dogs but it is an example of things I've used to decrease latency.


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## Sara Waters (Oct 23, 2010)

I have used it on one dog to increase the speed of her weaves. It appeared to work quite well but it was quite tricky as one had to capture the moment and reward, which at times was tricky to judge and sometimes for only a couple of weaves. I spent a few sessions wondering if I was actually achieving anything but this particular dog had been clicker trained pretty well and it must have worked, because her weaves really sped up. I have also used it on the same dog for increasing speed around posts. I havent used it on my youngsters as with them it is more about controlling their speed than creating it although I may yet use it on their weaves. I actually found it quite challenging, kinda messed with my head trying to sort it out to begin with.


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## Daniel Lybbert (Nov 23, 2010)

could someone explain limited hold?


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

Daniel.

It is basically only marking and rewarding an action that is working towards a goal, marking and rewarding only for above average performance.

The latency would be how long the dog takes to respond to a cue (command) is it .2 seconds? is it 5 seconds? High latency is longer response time. Overall speed can be a factor too.

If looked at with a recall for instance..you say "heir" or whatever, the dog over 10 excercises has an average of 3 second response time. You would begin to only mark and reward the latency that is lower than the median. 

this article explains it for the most part.

The "limited hold" name I assume means that the cue/reward is only good for a limited amount of time. If the dog takes too long it is not marked and is not rewarded.

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/724


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## Sara Waters (Oct 23, 2010)

My understanding is that the aim is to increase the speed at which the dog responds to a cue. So you are rewarding only for a faster reaction to a cue or speed of a recall, weave etc. So the limited hold is the criteria you introduce - the point at which you will reward, anything slower doesnt get rewarded. It is a progression so you build the speed and lower the time given to complete or react.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Slow can be from many different reasons.
It's natural to the dog.
To much correction used (for that dog) in training the retrieve with force.
Not enough correction (for that dog).
The reward doesn't hold any value for the behavior asked in reward based training.
Timing, timing, timing using ANY method. 

For ME, I don't want the dumbell to be used as a prey item or something of any real value. I use it as a means to an end. For MY dog that means reward when he brings back "whatever" I send him to "bring."
Thunder has been a natural retriever since I tested him at 4 and 5 weeks. Simple to train because he can't wait to bring ANYTHING to me. 
Trooper has all sorts of prey but no desire to bring anything to me. He was taught with more traditional back chaining and had to learn that bringing what I wanted earned a reward. For HIM that reward is a big, hard plastic ball that drives him crazy.
In both reward based training or correction based training the dog simply has to believe that the reward OR correction is always there. 
You can no more take a tug/ball/treats in the ring then you can a pinch or e-collar. You just have to outsmart the dog to make it believe you have either of the above!


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