Training With Treats

[DTrain]

I have never trained with treats before and I have never been in favor of it. However, I have discovered that my youngest dog who has been somewhat difficult to train is crazy about treats. It seems I can get him to do just about anything for a treat, at least I have his full attention if he thinks a treat is on the way. I am training him for herding and I will not use treats in that situation but I also want to train him for many other things. I am not so sure I am applying the treat training properly. Can someone give me advice or a description of what I should be doing, thanks for your help.

[Cynthia P]

I have never trained with treats before and I have never been in favor of it. However, I have discovered that my youngest dog who has been somewhat difficult to train is crazy about treats. It seems I can get him to do just about anything for a treat, at least I have his full attention if he thinks a treat is on the way. I am training him for herding and I will not use treats in that situation but I also want to train him for many other things. I am not so sure I am applying the treat training properly. Can someone give me advice or a description of what I should be doing, thanks for your help.

 

Dave you want to reward not bribe.

 

Start for instance by doing a lie down; If he already knows it and you want to reinforce quickness of a certain type of down (like a lying over on a hip or in a sphynx down) ask for the lie down, and reward witha small cookie (what ever that may be, a cookie, a popcorn, liver, cheese, kibble, etc); The reward should be delivered quickly, right after the "your are right" word (like a good or right or 'click') and delivered while they are in the position you want them in. IE if they are lying down, you say good, and go to reinforce and they get up...don't get a behaviour change of lie down get up to get the cookie. Delivery the cookie right betweenthe paws or to the mouth

 

If he doesn't know the lie down you can start with either a lure, ie treat in your hand and lure the dog to the ground, give the cookie; You want to than after a couple of repetitions stop luring with a treat in your hand and instead using your hand (sans treat) as the indicator and when he does it deliver the treat. The other option is to wait it out and as soon as he does something you want deliver the treat. With shaping the behaviour(ie waiting for what you want) you will want to reward steps towards the desired behaviour. If you want a lie down with hip over, reward the lie down or the start to the lie down; do that a couple of times and than the next time wait for a little bit more, as soon as the dog lies down, gets a little frustrated, starts thinking, they will try stuff, like sitting up, moving, shuffling, and catch the exact moment they roll their hip a little.

 

Is this the dog that has trouble with strange dogs? If it is you can use treats to reward good behaviour around other dogs. for instance, go to a place that he will be safe from stray runaway dogs (use someone else that has a non reactive dog at first); Start at 50-100 feet where your dog will be non reactive; ask for behaviours your dog knows and reward with treats. Than allow him to see the other dog, no reaction, you can treat; see the other dog, ask for a behaviour, sit, treat;

 

With treat training you want to interspurse treats with pets play etc; think about all the things that reinforce your dog, play, food, sniffing, rolling, food, herding etc.

 

I train mainly for herding but do use treats for non herding behaviours ...including that'll do when they are puppies (or new to me); I will teach them a "place" to go lay down, i use it to work on stays, lying down nicely at the fence when other dogs are herding, teaching them not to jump up, teaching them to walk nicely on a leash (ok, sometimes i use treats...but usually i'm too lazy to)

 

Let us know how it goes

 

cynthia

[DTrain]

Hi Cynthia, Thanks for your help. This is the same dog with the problem. I thought that since he is so into treats I could give it a try and help him along. It occurred to me that I want to treat the dog at the exact right moment so he did not associate something else with the treat. I will give it a try. He is a little better with other dogs and moving things like bikes, skateboards etc. He seems to be ignoring about half the situations that got to him. I find if I have his attention he is fine, once he fixes on something I know a bad reaction is coming.

[Cynthia P]

If he is fixed on something, than you need to break that "concentration"; You are also too close to the stimulus if that is the case;

 

If he gets locked on, give him a that'll do, tug on the leash, lets go, than a behaviour or two and than a treat. You don't want to start a behaviour chain that staring or reacting at the bad thing gets a cookie, so interupt the behaviour, ask for other behaviours and treat.

 

Food can be a good rewarder but you need to mix it up with other things. You can end up with a dog that only "listens" when their is a cookie involved.

 

I'm happy to help, i have a reactive Cattle Dog. I can work him around stock and other dogs with out a problem but it took me some time to work him through his obnoxious behaviour with other dogs

 

Cynthia

[DTrain]

Hi Again, thanks again. Good point about only listening when he thinks a treat is coming. I will try your instruction. He is much like your dog and my wife says he is like two dogs. He is fine around stock, I have been training him for a while now. His concentration is good, his confidence is good, he takes his commands and he is learning. But in other situations he is completely unpredictable. He will often not take his commands and he is either in alert or play mode. If I can work him through this he will be a good dog. I am getting too old for bad kids.

[juliepoudrier]

DTrain,

You might get many more responses from experienced clicker and treat trainers if you posted this question in the general section. This section is meant for training questions relating to training dogs for stockwork, which is why you're not getting a lot of input from other folks who use the techniques you're asking about. I realize that you are training the dog in question for stockwork, but the specific questions you're asking are unrelated to training for stockwork, and that's limiting the amount of help you're getting here. (I'm not trying to diminish Cynthia's contributions, but there are a lot of people experienced with treat training; they just don't come to the stockdog training section.)

 

J.

[DTrain]

Thanks Julie, I will re-post. I had not thought of that.