The primary reinforcer or reward can be anything that the dog likes and is willing to work for. We will be limiting our discussions in this program to food and toys. However, the possibilities are endless as long as you can control access to whatever reward you are using. Food and toys are easy to manipulate and are therefore the most popular reinforcers for most trainers.
There are advantages to using both food and toys. If possible it is advantageous to condition your dog to enjoy both.
Advantages to Training With Food
1. Food delivery is quicker than rewarding with a toy.
2. Most puppies prefer working for food.
3. Guiding a dog as with a lure or with reward placement is easier with food.
4. Dogs tend to be more thoughtful when working for food than when working for a toy reward thereby enabling them to learn new behaviors quicker and easier.
Advantages to Training With a Toy
1. Play builds drive and enthusiasm for the work more than food in toy motivated dogs. Once a dog learns how to work for play, many dogs will prefer a toy over food.
2. Play rewards are not dependent on the hunger level of the dog.
When to Use Which One
As a general rule, I prefer teaching new behaviors with food. I also prefer teaching behaviors that require calmness with food. Calmer behaviors include the stay exercises and changes in position.
For dogs that like play as a reward, play will often build more drive and enthusiasm for the work.
I use whichever reward is most motivating to the particular dog in the particular situation. Some dogs will be trained almost exclusively with food their entire lives. Others work mostly for play. Most dogs work for a combination of the two. In fact, once dogs are working for longer periods between reward events, I will often reward the dog with a game of chase, a game of tug, and then some food all in the same reward event. We’ll discuss reward events in a later lesson.
I want my dogs to enjoy working for both food and toy since both have different benefits. With dogs that highly prefer one over the other, I will primarily train with what they prefer. However, I will continue working with them trying to condition them to enjoy both food and toy.
A Brief Overview of How to Use Toys as a Reward
I recommend teaching a puppy to play tug when he is young if you want to use tug as an obedience reward. It can be difficult to train a soft-mouthed, soft-tempered older dog to play tug once they begin bringing you their toys and have been conditioned to release everything when you reach for it. This is a mistake I made with most of my Goldens.
How to teach tug is beyond the scope of this book. However, in summary, you must teach your dog first to love to tug. Then, teach them to bring you the toy and release it on command. Only then, are you ready to use play as a reward.
Tips on How to Best use Food as the Primary Reinforcer
Train With Food that Your Dog Likes
This first tip is probably pretty obvious, but I’ll mention it here anyway. Whatever food you are rewarding with must be something of value to the dog. If he doesn’t like the reward, he won’t be inclined to work for it.
Train When Your Dog is Be Hungry
if you are training with food, the dog MUST be hungry. Train before a meal and don’t let your dog get overweight. Overweight dogs are less likely to want to work for their food (not to mention the fact that their health can suffer as a result of carrying around those extra pounds).
Let Your Dog Work for Kibble if He’ll Work Happily for it
If your puppy or dog is hungry enough to work for kibble, this is ideal if you are heavily reinforcing your dog with food. Puppies that are kept growing slowly (as is best for their health) will usually work for kibble. Initially, the rate of reinforcement we recommend will be very high. Therefore, you will be throwing your dog’s diet out of balance if he is working for an abundance of treats.
We start our puppies out training with dog food alone. In fact from the age of 6 to 12 weeks, our puppies get all of their food either from training sessions or some other kind of work (like building crate desire for example).
My older dogs also work for dog food. However, by the time they are adults they are working for what we call Jack Pot rewards which is more motivating than a few pieces of dog food from your hand. (We’ll discuss this later.)
Train with Higher Value Treats if Dog Food Doesn’t Work
Many, if not most adult dogs just starting this work need more high value treats in order to have the motivation for the work. If your dog is one of those that doesn’t work enthusiastically for dog food, you will need to use some form of treats that he does want to work for.
If you are using treats for your dog, it is best to use soft treats that don’t crumble. As much as possible, it is best to keep the food off the floor. Crumbly treats tend to drip out of a dog’s mouth as they chew. In addition, most dogs will swallow soft treats quicker than crumbly treats thereby enabling your training session to flow much more smoothly.
Keep Your Dog’s Diet in Balance
If you are using treats, you need to limit your training to much shorter sessions than we demonstrate. Otherwise, you will throw your dog’s diet out of balance or cause weight issues with overfeeding. This program can move at an extremely fast pace. In just a few weeks, our puppies have learned an incredible amount and have worked for a lot of food.
It is important that you keep your dog’s diet in balance. There is no rush. What we call Day 1 in training can just as well be accomplished over 3 days or even a week or a month. Whether you are feeding dog food or treats, there is no need to move as quickly through the program as I move. Especially if you are feeding treats, take your time with your training!
Make Sure Your Young Puppy Can Quickly and Easily Chew The Food
Because we start this process at such an early age, there are always some puppies who haven’t yet developed good chewing skills and they dribble the food. If puppies are dribbling food, it is very important that you either catch it with your hand or pick it up off the floor before they find it.
If you are working with a young puppy, make sure they are used to eating their food dry so they learn to chew and swallow quicker. We recommend that dogs eat watered down food for health reasons if they are being given much food that is not coming from your hand. However, for food delivered to a puppy, it must be dry and to keep the flow going well, the puppy needs to be able to eat his food quickly. Therefore, we always spend about a week feeding our puppies mostly dry food so that they learn how to chew well. Then once their chewing skills are proficient, we go back to watering their food when it comes from a bowl.
Hold the Food at the Base of Your First Two Fingers
Place the food in between the base of your index finger and the base of your birdie finger. Then cover and secure it with your thumb. You will control access to the food with your thumb as you either keep the puppy from getting it or as you push it into your puppy’s mouth.
It is especially important that when using luring, the food is unattainable until after you’ve said the marker word. By covering and controlling the food with your thumb, you can keep the puppy from getting it until after you’ve marked the behavior. Then you move your thumb so that the puppy can access the food. This is demonstrated on the 6W2D video.
The ability to control the food has several benefits.
1. It facilitates quicker learning for the puppy to associate the sound of the marker word with the ability to get the food when luring.
2. It helps the handler to better use reward placement after the puppy has completed his work.
Keep the Food and Your Training Pouch Out of Sight
As much as possible, you want the food to be out of your puppy’s site. Therefore, the position of your treat pouch and how you deliver the food is important.
Wear the training pouch on your backside when doing work where the puppy is on your front side. This will keep the food out of your puppy’s site until you are ready to deliver it to him.
Alternate the Hand that Delivers the Food When Dog is Working in Front of You
Initially, when working with your puppy in front of you alternate the hand that delivers the food. Load one hand with food while you are delivering the food with the other hand. This process will allow you to have the food ready for delivery in a more timely manner.
Use Good Food Delivery Timing
As the puppy progresses in the program, timely food delivery will become less important. At this point, you’ll want to alternate hands randomly so that the puppy can’t anticipate where the food will be coming from. Sometimes, alternate between your left and right hand. Occasionally do several food deliveries in a row with the same hand. Keep your puppy guessing as to where the food will come from by being unpredictable.
Use Good Food Delivery Technique when Delivering Food to a Dog in Heel Position
When training heeling, wear the pouch on your right side. Discreetly pull pieces out of the pouch with your right hand while the dog is working. Then transfer the food to the left hand for delivery. Transfer the food behind your back if puppy tends to forge. Transfer it in front of you if your puppy tends to lag.
Handle Dropped Food Discreetly
Holding your food correctly will minimize food dropping. However, it will happen! Either you get clumsy with the food, the dog knocks it out of your hand, or the puppy dribbles it out of his mouth.
When it does, do not react to it. If the dog doesn’t realize that you’ve dropped it and he offers another behavior, mark and reward the behavior. While the dog is taking the food with one hand, discreetly pick up the food with the other. It is important that dogs never start thinking that searching the floor for food is an option worth pursuing. I never let my dogs get food off the floor.
If you think the dog does see the dropped food, quickly but calmly, step on the food and cover it with your foot. Then just stand there and wait until your puppy forgets the food and re-engages you to work. When you reward the next time, pick up the food with the hand that isn’t giving food to the dog.
You do not want to get into a race to see who can get the food first. Whether you just let the food sit there with a dog that doesn’t notice it or you have to cover it with your foot, remain calm. Don’t add energy to the situation. Be discreet!
