That was quick... here...
Podcast #95: Behavior Chains for Practical Purposes with Morten Egtvedt | Hannah Branigan – Wonderpups Training
I found this SO useful!
To summarise it, let's say you're learning a poem or piece of Shakespeare like you had to at school. Everyone had to do that, right? No fricking idea why, but, yeah, I can still recount the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy from Macbeth. Because that's useful in everyday life. Anyway, I digress. For a change.
There's this piece of prose you have to remember. You start at the beginning, you learn a line. You repeat it. You add the second line. Then you start again. Every line you add, you repeat the first line, then the second, then the third. And so on. This means that, by the time you've remembered it, the first line has been recalled hundreds of times. The last line only a handful. The behaviour is getting weaker towards the end.
Say you start by learning the last line first. then hook on the second last. And so on. that means that, as you progress through the poem or prose or whatever it is, you're covering ground that you are more experienced with. You gain confidence as you progress, rather than losing it. That is the beauty and power in back-chaining. As the dog gets to the end of the behaviour chain, they are MORE likely to complete it, not less, because they have greater understanding of those last pieces and how they fit into the chain.
