When Doing any kind of Positive Reinforcement Training you will be using a reward for your dog doing the correct behavior, in many cases its probably food. Reward based training is probably one of the most effective ways to teach to a dog a new behavior. Do you really think Marine animals like killer whales could be trained using the methods of harm? So if a very large marine mammal can be taught to open their mouth to brush their teeth and other behaviors using positive reinforcement training why can't we use the same methods on our dogs. Think of food, toys and play rewards as money for your dog. They can careless about the value of a dollar bill but give them a smelly treat and you're in business! The higher the "value" the treat the more willing we're gonna be to learn or do the behavior.
If someone asked you to move a stack of books to one corner of the room to another for a quarter. What do you think you'll do? Well depends on the person asking, What exactly they're asking for and if you feel like it. If I like you I will probably do it, but I'm not gonna rushing to do it. Now if someone asked me to do the behavior for $1. Same questions will apply. But I would probably more likely get up and do it or at least a little faster. What about $5? Now how about $100? Like you or not, I will move that stack of books pretty fast to get that $100 dollars. If I feel like it or not, I will still do it cause I want the reward. And if you kept on doing it will keep moving books around for more money Money makes the human world go round. So using different "value" treats will make your dog want to learn and keep repeating the behavior for you.
Each Value Level is based on a few things : The importance of the behavior, how well we know it, or how new the behavior is.
Here are some Treat Suggestions:
The Quarter - The behavior is either older or well known
- Kibble
- Cheerios or Other low sugar cereals
- Little to No Smell to them treats
- Old Mother Hubbard- Small Biscuits or Training Bits
- Charlie Bears
- Carvers- Chicken Flavored (Break these treats into smaller pieces
- Nutro Natural Choice Crunchy Treats- Apple or Blueberry
- Pet Botanicals- Omega Treats or Training rewards
- Zukes
- Bill Jac
- Frozen Peas
- Carrots
- Cooked Pasta
The $5 Dollar Treats - The Really Smelly Treat
- Moo Moo Q's- Beef Lung
- Baa Baa Q's- Lamb Lung
- Freeze Dried Liver
- Freeze Dried Chicken
- Chicken Poppers
The $100 Dollar Treats - OMG! This is the best thing in the world Please please please I will do anything for these treats. Mostly Likely this are gonna be human foods
- Cooked Chicken
- Hotdogs
- Thawed Meatballs
- String Cheese
- American Sliced Cheese
- Cheese Balls
When using treats as rewards always remember to many can fill your dog up quickly and be unhealthy. When you have a full dog they're less motived by food and it slows down the learning process. Also Train a hungry dog when you can. For Small and Medium dogs treats should be roughly the size of their kibble or a pea. Larger dogs treats should never be bigger then the size of a nickel. Treats should always be the big enough to enjoy but quick and easy to eat. Please never give more then 25% of their diet in treats, I like to tell my students 10% of their diet is perfect balance. Also remember rewards don't always have to be food. Using other things your dog enjoys are just as likely to work. Take your dog off welfare make them work for anything you give them. Make them sit for greeting, for dinner, Petting for laying down,Have them stay for fetch just think of the endless possibility you can do for rewards for your dog.
- Fetch, Tug, Frisbee, Catch and other sources of play
- Vigorous petting and happy praise
- Squeaker toys
- Walks, games of tags and hide n seek
- Time on the Couch.
- Anything your dog enjoys
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