Let’s get straight to it, is using treats for dog training a good thing or a bad thing ?
Does using food help or hinder the dog's learning process?
There’s so much we've learned about how dogs think, learn, and perceive the world and there’s no getting from it food can and does affect the training process with your dog.
IS USING TREATS FOR DOG TRAINING EFFECTIVE?
Every single dog is different and needs to be trained accordingly. Here's the good news when applied correctly with certain dogs using food in training can be highly effective and make it fun for your dog.
The reason food works so effectively is it motivates dogs. Why? Because it's a primary reinforcer for them, praise or toys is a nice reward for good behaviour but quite simply it’s nowhere near as tasty. Food is something your dog is innately motivated by.
ARE YOU BRIBING THEM USING TREATS?
Yes it is a bribe and if used incorrectly can cause lots of problems especially for the dogs weight management.
REMEMBER THIS the purpose of a bribe is to persuade your dog to do something for YOU.
“If you sit, I'll give you a delicious treat” and so on and so on.
Dogs which are trained in this way expect to see a reward for performing a good behaviour. Very quickly they expect that if they don't see the treat beforehand, it's unlikely they'll be rewarded, making them less likely to do as they are told.
Instead focus on using food as a payment to your dog a bit like you’re cashing in your chips at the casino. Good behaviours happen first then the reward.
Avoid showing your dog as much as possible the reward in order to get them to perform a good behaviour.
A FEW TIPS WHEN GIVING TREATS
- Keep your food tucked away so your dog can’t see it until they’ve performed the good behaviour
- Be careful when and where you give your dog a treat, giving scraps from the table could make them beg and whine
- Use treats as an attention grabber if they’re not concentrating on you or what you want them to do
WILL THEY ONLY LISTEN IF I HAVE FOOD?
The frequency of each treat is so important.
When teaching a behaviour for the first time make sure you reward every single time they get it right. Once your dog is developing and getting it right instead of rewarding every time, you'll have to start to reward more randomly.
By following these steps, your dog will listen with or without food and they’ll know that there's a good chance of a treat will be on its way even though the food isn't visible or guaranteed.
MY CLIENTS ALWAYS ASK ME, WHAT DO I DO?
I don’t like to use treats as a reward as a training aid. Why?
Because it can cause you problems later on with the dog. I prefer to use praise and fuss to let the dog know they are doing it correctly and correct them when they are behaving badly. However I do sometimes and it is rarely use treats to gain the dogs attention if they are young and aren’t focusing on me.
