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What鈥檚 your favorite thing? What鈥檚 your spouse鈥檚 favorite thing? How about your best friend? Co-worker? Are they all the same? Probably not.
Your dog has a different favorite thing too. What motivates one dog isn鈥檛 necessarily what motivates another dog. But food is a motivator that most dogs love. Using treats during training is one of the best ways to guarantee that your dog will repeat the behavior you want.
Positive Reinforcement Training
Positive reinforcement聽training聽involves聽rewarding your dog for the things they do right. But, not all are created equal. Some dogs will work for pieces of dry cereal or a . But for many dogs this is like expecting a toddler to find broccoli rewarding. Training with positive reinforcement has the added benefit of creating a dog that wants to be trained, but it鈥檚 defined by the receiver. This means your dog gets to choose what is most rewarding to them, not you. The more distracting the environment in which you鈥檙e training, the more motivating the treat needs to be in order to keep your dog鈥檚 attention.
Defining a Hierarchy of Rewards
When first starting out, it鈥檚 important to make sure the rewards you鈥檙e giving your dog are more exciting than the environment around them. If you鈥檙e working on a skill your dog already knows at home with few distractions, you can probably get away with giving them a low-value treat. Examples of these include , carrots, ice cubes, green beans, or hard biscuits.
When working with your dog in a distracting environment or on a skill they find challenging, higher value treats may be necessary. Medium-value treats, such as , cheese, or , are a good option when training in your yard or another familiar environment with few distractions. If you鈥檙e training in an environment that your dog finds particularly distracting, like the park, it might be time to bring out some high-value treats. Most dogs would define these as dog-safe foods, like a piece of chicken, hot dog, hamburger, deli meat, or liver.
Remember, these aren鈥檛 static and not every dog follows this breakdown. Offer different food rewards to find out what your dog likes best, and build your dogs鈥� reward hierarchy from there.
Training in Distracting Environments
When teaching something new or practicing in a new environment, increase the value of your treats. As with any treat used for training, make sure you use small pieces! Treats should be pea-sized or smaller so your dog doesn鈥檛 get too full.
When in an unfamiliar environment, your dog鈥檚 job is harder. Just like you would expect to get paid more for doing a more demanding job, your dog should be paid more too. The more often you reward your dog when he does what you ask, the more likely they鈥檒l do what you ask in the future!