Internet training tips and considerations
Before you decide to try the newest thing in training(virtual animal training) here are a few tips to consider:
1. Speed is everything!
If you are a trainer you know that timing is critical in good training. That means when the animal does a behavior you want to reinforce it must be marked and treated as quickly as possible. A rough rule of thumb in training is the behavior must be marked(click or beep) in less than 1 second and the treat delivered in 2-3 seconds. What does this mean for your internet training? There are two sources of delay when using the internet.
Outbound Delay. (latency from behavior to trainer seeing it)
The video feed from the training location to the trainer location means that by the time the trainer sees the image of the animal doing something(ex. sitting) it has already happened for some amount of time. This is the outbound delay from the training room.
Inbound Delay (latency from trainer mark to animal hearing/seeing the marker in the room).
Once the trainer sees the behavior they now want to mark it. If the trainer was in the room they would click the clicker and the animal would hear it immediately. So the "delay" in the non-virtual situation is just trainer reaction time(for a good trainer this might be 0.1-0.2 seconds at best). So trainer reaction time is always part of the delay whether virtual or non-virtual. But add to the trainer reaction the delay over the internet of the trainers marking signal.
Round trip delay = Outbound delay + Inbound delay
So what we are really concerned about is the round trip delay and will that be compatible with the type of training we want to do. Just because you have a higher round trip delay it does NOT mean you can't train. It just means there may be some faster behaviors that can not be trained very well with your connection speed.
The delays are a function of both the internet connection speed itself AND the program/platform you use for the audio/video feed. So you may have a very fast internet connection but if you pick a slow program for the audio/video feed the round trip delay will be impacted.
Some examples:
Internet connections: High speed internet connections may vary by the load at the time you access the system. So you may train on Sunday afternoon and have good high speed connections, but then your try it on Monday morning and it's slow(just like us). Speed is also effected by the traffic load on your connection.
Tip: Turn off the trainer's video inbound to the training area.
If you are feeding video into the room with the animal ...turn it off ...the animal doesn't need to see your face and that video portion may slow down your connection.
We like to see round trip delays of around 1 second. With the right software this is possible...at least if you are training with the same country as the animal.
The worst delays are usually stand alone webcams which are designed more for security video and archiving that real time action. The shortest delays are found in some remote desktop support programs or person-person chat packages.
2. Are the target behaviors compatible with the total round-trip delays?
Some behaviors like "click for calm" may work okay for slower connections.
Target stick training is possible but you will need a good connection and fast audio/video programs.