[alexav]

Since the subject has come up numerous times lately, I thought I'd submit this article in the hopes that it might help some folks understand a little better about rewards, praise, and the bribe/lure confusion.

First, we must realize that almost everything we want our dogs to do, or not to do, is foreign to them and goes against their natural behaviors.

Consider a dog’s natural greeting behavior...jumping up and licking. To a dog, this is perfectly natural and should be considered by humans as an act of sincere desire to gain approval.
Sorry pup...that’s not what people want. People want you to sit politely and wait to be petted. (A scary show of dominance to the dog, if the truth were known. We have just conditioned them to tolerate it.)

Have you ever seen a dog greet another dog by going up to him and sitting? Have you ever seen a dog insist that another dog sit in order to play with him?

Let’s put this in human terms. Imagine if you greeted someone by smiling and firmly shaking their hand and they yelled at you and pushed you away!
In many human cultures it is considered good manners to kiss someone on the cheek that you just barely met. Let me tell you it took a while for me to get comfortable with this custom when I married into a Greek family! Now it is second nature when I visit my husband’s family. Why? Did they grab me and force me to kiss them or jerk me by the shirt collar if I didn’t offer the proper greeting? Of COURSE NOT! I learned that participating in this custom rewarded me in the end. It made me feel like I belonged and was reinforced by smiles and kind words.

Now a reward to a dog needs to be something MUCH more valuable than a smile or kind words. Otherwise, why would they be motivated to go against their natural behavior and do what we humans want them to do?

What is valuable to a dog? Food would be the number one answer if dogs could talk. Then toys, access to other dogs, a good game of tug, a chase opportunity. Human praise is WAYYYY down on the list and if human praise is not paired with a high value reward, it really doesn’t mean anything to the dog at all.

Many of my students over the years have argued the point of rewarding the dog with food or toys saying “I want him to do it for ME, not for the reward.” In the past, I have been too polite to tell them that what they are asking of their dog is completely unreasonable. What I'd like to say is, "Who do you think you are anyway? Oooooh, big deal, you say “Good dog” when your dog stops pulling on the leash. The pleasure a dog gets from pulling you along and sniffing whatever he wants holds much more value for him!"

SO if you’re not using rewards, you’re using punishment or discomfort to get what you want. The dog STILL isn’t “doing it for you”. He’s doing it to avoid the discomfort of being punished!

This “ME” theory just doesn’t make sense!

All animals do what works for them. What brings the most success.
It’s why Grizzly bears wade into the river to catch the salmon. Why Hummingbirds are attracted by certain colors. They learn that by doing a specific behavior, they are consistently rewarded!
Even if they are only rewarded part of the time, it is still the best choice for getting what they want the most so they keep repeating the behavior. Ever have a hummingbird stuck in your garage? It is a common occurance. They are drawn to the red plastic pull on your garage door release, conditioned by nature to believe it to be a reward.

If all the salmon in Alaska were to disappear suddenly, it wouldn’t take long for the bears to realize that this behavior is not worthwhile and they would stop. The same thing happens when we stop rewarding behaviors that we want from our dogs because we think “they are trained now and shouldn’t need a reward”.

What if your place of employment stopped paying you? After all, you’ve been doing that job long enough that it should be a habit. You shouldn’t need to be paid any more.
How long would you stay? What if they just paid you every other time, paid you at random or gave you a much bigger check at the end of the month only if you worked really hard?
It all makes a difference how you feel about going to work, doesn’t it? Is going to work your first choice of things you’d like to do? If it’s not made worthwhile by an exchange of value, why on earth would anyone want a job?

If we stop rewarding something, the dog feels there is nothing in it for him so why should he continue to offer this behavior? It doesn’t work for him anymore...the river has no salmon.

In “training” our dogs, we need to make believers out of them. No, there won’t always be a visible reward or lure in front of their nose but we must show our dogs that indeed, the reward will come and it’s well worth the work. I believe that this is the greatest function of pockets. For successful obedience responses, my dogs and the dogs I train must believe that I somehow magically create food and toys from thin air.

How do we accomplish this magic act and avoid the mistake of bribing the dog?
At first, every successful move gets them a reward. Later, every REALLY successful move gets the reward. (Shaping the behavior to exactly what we want) When the dog is really successful almost all of the time, we still need to reward for that success although dogs are willing to work for more random rewards like a gambler who puts coin after coin in a slot machine because he just KNOWS he’ll get paid this next time.
Remember, what we are asking of our dogs is NOT their first choice of behaviors!

Luring is a teaching aid, and should be phased out as soon as the dog understands what the cue is. Then it is only a matter of producing a reward from behind your back or out of the other hand. After that, surprise your dog with unseen goodies from your pockets or even your mouth. Yes, there is a good reason you sometimes see really good trainers actually spit food at their dogs. One more action that causes the dog to believe that if he does what you ask, there is something good in it for him and you just never know where it will come from!

Happy training!

Christy