Positive Reinforcement Training

We do use food when we start training a dog a new skill or behavior. However, we teach you how to use food so that it works to your advantage, rather than getting you stuck on it in your dog training. We want you to be able to get past “he’ll do it for a cookie” as soon as possible. When you and your dog are ready, we also teach you how to teach your dog about delayed gratification.

You’re going to get a paycheck . . . but not yet

Sometimes we start training a skill using a lure. Most of the time it’s a small, soft, easily swallowed food bite. We transition to foods use as a reward as soon as possible. Understanding the difference between lure use and rewarding is important in good dog training.

A lure (or magnet) implies that we are using the presence of the food to get a behavior to occur. Often the food is just at the dog’s nose level. However, having your dog sit while you are scooping food into the dish is also a lure because the dog knows where the food is, and you could likely not get the dog to engage with you before going to the food bowl that you’ve placed on the ground.

A reward is something that the dog wants, and is given to the dog only after they do something that we have requested. The dog sits, we reach into our treat pocket and bring out a bite for the dog. Asking your dog to leave the food bowl on the ground and move away from it before being released to dive in, is a higher level of food delay. As soon as possible, we add a increasing time delayed between the dog doing or maintaining the behavior, and the reward. The food is not in our hand when we make the request. It comes out of our pocket or treat bag once we are ready to deliver.

Humans learn as children that sometimes their rewards for good behavior when their chores are done will come after some delay, like the allowance they receive on Saturday for the things they did during the week. Than as adults, most of us learn that our paychecks will come, but the delay is sometimes a week, or even up to a month.

But dogs, by nature, live more in the moment. However they can learn that the rewards will come, but not for a while. We call this “food delay”. For most dogs a week or a month is too long to wait!

Many dogs also learn that doing things for you are fun, and that praise, your attention, the ability to do the activity, and just the ability to go have fun with you are reward enough.

Dogs have a wide range of personality just like people do. Some come to us very willing to do the right thing once we teach them what we expect, and some will push us for their lifetime. This, and your willingness to teach your dog, will determine how far you can go with food delay. At minimum, you will learn to reward rather than lure for behaviors.