We know that using treats in our training is a really effective way to get our
dogs, to listen to us.
But a big mistake out there is that people often become very dependent on the
food. They need to shake the cookie bag in order for the dog to listen to them.
So today we're going to talk a little bit about how do you food effectively in
your training, so that that doesn't happen to you.
And if you suspect that your dog already is learning only to listen when there's
food involved, we're also going to talk to you about how to fix that.
I'm Kayl McCann and welcome back to McCann dogs.
Let's talk about why food is such a great resource when we're training our
puppies. Now it's pretty obvious puppies, generally like food.
So we often like to use something that's going to get our puppies interested in
working for us, get them, learning that, listening to us as fun. And again,
we need to use something that we can compete against all of those natural
distractions around us. So in the beginning,
we end up using a lot of food in our training to keep the puppies motivated and
engaged with us.
But there gets to a certain point when we want to move away from all of that
food and ensure that later on down the road,
our puppies are actually listening to us and they're not looking at our hands to
see whether we have something for them in order for them to decide whether
they're going to listen to us or not.
As we're conditioning to train our puppies, to work for food.
It's a really good idea to introduce some type of marker word that you're going
to be able to use down the road to let your dog know that they're right.
And we recommend that you use the word. Yes. And when we have a baby puppy,
one of our most favorite things to do is to teach them how amazing that word
yes is. And if I was to say yes to you, and then hand you a hundred dollars or,
you know, a chocolate bar or something that you really love.
And I was to repeat that over and over and over again,
you would start to feel really good and excited when I said the word yes to you.
And we literally do exactly the same thing with our puppy. We say, yes.
And then we follow that by giving them a high value reward.
And we repeat that until the dog starts to love when we use the word. Yes.
Now this enables us to use that. Yes. As a marker,
anytime our dog does something correct. And we want you to think of it,
like taking a snapshot in time.
So if your dog sits and their little bomb hits the floor,
you can Mark that by saying the word. Yes.
And that buys you the time to get in your additional reinforcements.
It could be food. It could be affection. It could be a little play with a toy.
Something that lets them know that they're correct.
And over time as you're practicing, yes. Followed by a reward.
Eventually that word yes. Becomes so amazing to your puppy.
That you can be more random with your food and your toys.
You can actually depend solely on the word. Yes.
And your dog's going to feel satisfied. Now,
the part that you really need to understand in order for this to be successful
is that you need to make sure you have really good timing when you're delivering
your word. Yes. And also when you're using food,
if this timing is not done correctly,
you can very quickly start to depend on the food and that word. Yes.
Isn't going to have as much importance dogs learn within one second.
So when we're training, we need to make sure that we're queing,
or marking our dog with the word. Yes.
And then we're following it with some type of motivating reward.
A lot of people end up doing it the other way around,
which causes the dog to look and seek for the food or the reward first,
without really worrying about the word. Yes.
So it's very important that the word yes comes first followed then by
whatever reinforcement that you're going to use.
And in some cases using food is one of your best options.
When people are trying to train their dogs to, you know,
listen to a verbal command or a hand signal,
they often do it while engaging the dog with the food the entire time.
And unfortunately, what happens is that, especially if your dog is very food,
motivated, dogs are thinking about anything,
about what you're doing with your body or what you're doing with your voice
right now, she's completely focused on the food.
So if I wanted to teach her to sit, you know,
on a command and I was to say pineapple, for example, pineapple.
And then I would lure her in a position.
She's not paying any attention to my command.
So if I practice that over and over and over again,
and I got to the point where she was lying down and I said, pineapple,
she's going to say, well, you know, I don't really know what to do.
Where's the food you can see she's already looking at the food.
So if I was to do this correctly,
I would need to make sure that she can clearly hear the command before she's
shown how to go into position. So I would have my food ready,
but it's hidden away.
Say pineapple. Yeah.
Good girl. And then I would use the food to help her into position.
And I would need to repeat that multiple times until she understood how to
respond to the word independently of the food.
Now in other common mistakes that people often make is they set out and they
sort of assume that the dog's going to know the command and they say.
So she.
It doesn't know what to do. And then they show the dog with the treat.
Now too much time has gone past. Now dogs learn within one second.
So when I'm training her to do a new skill,
I must present the command or the signal followed one second later by some
type of motivator. And it could, in this case be food, it could be a toy.
It could be movement.
There's all kinds of things you could do to motivate the dog to assume as a
specific behavior, but it needs to be separated in this manner.
So now I'm going to show you what it looks like if it's done correctly.
And maybe if I'm lucky I can teach Funkee to sit on the word pineapple.
So I'm going to get her out of that sitting position, sort of a default for her.
I have my treats ready. I'm going to say the word followed one second later,
by that cue with the treats. So I'm going to say.
Pineapple. Yes.
I'm going to lower her up into a sit and then I can reward. Okay.
Let's try that.
Wait. Pineapple. Yes.
Good girl. Command first, followed by the treat. And again, you'll notice.
I don't good girl. Wait, when I say the command, my food is not on her nose.
She's not smelling it or licking it. She knows that I have it. She's not stupid.
Hold on baby. Gotta wait for me to do.
Pineapple. Yes.
Good girl. Okay. We're gonna try one more. Good.
You're a good girl, wait, pineapple. Yes. Good.
Girl. Now, if go. Well, when you're practicing with this, with your puppy,
you're going to do multiple repetitions. But several days in a row,
I'm going to just fly by the seat of my pants here and see if she can figure
this out.
And I'm going to see whether I can get her to sit on the command pineapple.
So if she does this well, I'm going to give her a really awesome reward. Ready?
Pineapple. Oh, darn. So that means I haven't done enough repetitions.
Now this is where I can give you some good dog training advice.
A common mistake that people would make at this point is they would say
pineapple, pineapple, pineapple, and then we keep repeating it. Oh, good girl.
You can see, she's trying to figure out what on earth I want.
Now all that's happening here is I'm teaching her to, you know,
problem solve and be not really sure about what the command is.
And I'm also teaching her.
I'm going to say pineapple four times and then you should sit for a cookie.
So I'm going to go back to a bit of a training mode kid. Lie down again.
Pineapple. Yes. Good girl. Okay. lie down, good girl. Wait. Oops.
Wait. Pineapple. Yes. Good cookie. Try again.
Lighter wait pineapple. Yes. Good girl. Now I'm going to try and test her again.
Lie down. Good wait pineapple.
Let's try pineapple. Yes. Good girl. Okay. So again, she makes an error.
I don't keep asking and asking. I go back to showing pineapple.
Yes.
Good. Wow.
Wow. And once she is successful, I need to be very quick to yes.
And then reward and give her lots of rewards.
What a good girl. You're so smart.
That little pineapple,
another common mistake that people make is rewarding the dog with food,
but in the wrong position. So for example,
if I asked Funkee to sit or lie down and I go to give her a reward and just as
I'm about to feed her, she ends up standing up.
We have a lot of people that say good, and they feed their dog anyways.
And what starts to happen is the dog learns that when you say sit and you
approach them, they're going to stand up for the tree every single time.
So keep in mind that what you've asked your dog to do,
needs to be reinforced in that position to strengthen the skill.
So if I want to teach Funkee to sit one, I reward her.
I'm going to feed her in a way that she still continues sitting. Yes.
I might raise my hand above her nose a little bit more keeping that weight in
her bum. So she doesn't pop up for the sit. Good girl, good sit.
Same thing for the down. If people reward in the down,
we have a lot of people that say yes, and they pull their food further away.
And the dog pops up out of position and we reward anyways,
this can create a lot of confusion for the dog because they learn whatever ward
and for my mom or dad, much like, and I'm going to keep repeating that.
So it's very important that I'm clear with my dog, that if I've said yes,
and I'm going to reward,
my dog is still assuming that position as I go to actually deliver the food
to them. Now, how do you know when you're ready to wean off of the food?
You know,
what sign is your dog going to give you that you're ready to start making
progressions in your training. Now, typically, if we're starting to use foods,
the next progression that we would make is seeing if our dog can follow our hand
signal without having food in our hands,
dogs actually respond to hand signals and body language much more naturally and
more easily than the verbal commands.
So that's the step that we would start with next. Now, in order to do this,
I need to make sure that I'm really clear about what hand signal my dog's
starting to pick up on. So for example,
if I wanted to teach her to lie down on a hand signal,
if I have food in my hand,
I'm going to pay very special attention to what my hand looks like.
When I go to give her a signal.
If sometimes I lure with my hand open other times,
I point that can actually be a really big difference to a dog.
So I'm just going to start with my food in between my fingers. Like,
so I'm going to say, down,
and then I'm going to lure one second later with my hand signal,
taking note of that hand signal.
And then I want to progress to not having any food in my hand at all.
So here's how we're going to make this transition a little bit more smooth.
Okay, babe,
I'm going to get a couple of treats ready in my pocket here and my bait out,
but I'm just going to kind of hide it away for a moment. I've warmed her up.
I know she's ready to go into position.
I'm going to hold my hand in exactly the same way as I did a moment ago,
once she hits the deck, I'm going to say yes,
and then I'm going to follow by giving multiple rewards.
And I'm going to talk to you specifically about how we deliver the food that
really amplifies this exercise. So it looks something like this down. Yes.
So she fall without food.
I'm going to keep my signal hand in position and then I'm going to move my food
to my signal hand. And here's why this is so crucial.
If this is your signal hand and when your dog has a great performance, you yes.
And feed at your bait pouch over here.
Where do you think the dog's going to start paying attention?
There are only going to look at that bait pouch,
or if the hand that's holding the food and the hand signal hand,
isn't going to have as much importance and to show you that again. Okay. Funkee.
I have my food hidden away down. Yes. Good girl.
My hand stays in place and I simply move the food to my signal hand.
So she learns that this hand is the most important thing. What a good girl.
Okay. Very nice. Now,
if you're looking for other ways to make the food a little less obvious,
you can do very simple things.
Like rather than having the bait pouch be so visible to your dog,
just swinging around behind you. So they can't see it quite as easily. Now,
as we start to wean off the food, good girl in our hands, the word yes.
Becomes a really crucial part of our training.
If I don't have any food in my hands and my, my treats are behind my back.
They're not as easily for me. Easy for me to get at the word. Yes.
Is going to be really,
really important steps that if I asked Funkee to do something like a teller down
and she lies down, if I say yes, when she's in position,
I now can take that extra moment to get the food out, to reward her.
If I'm not able to use the yes, as a marker,
it's virtually impossible for me to feed her within one second of her lying
down. If it, the food isn't in my hand. So I really want you to think about the,
yes.
Being really crucial in that snapshot in time when that position is being made
saying yes. And then from there,
if it takes you a couple extra seconds to fumble to get the treats out,
that's okay. Because you've already nailed that perfect timing using the word.
Yes. And on top of that,
your dog's starting to get used to listening to you without having to see food
in your hands. First, you're asking for behavior sit. Yes.
And then you can reach for food from there. Good girl.
And as more practice comes into play,
your dog's going to be much more reliable without needing to see the food first,
fast forward in your training a little bit where you get to the point where
maybe you don't need food in your training anymore.
Something as simple as we can stick with the sick,
because it's an easy one to kind of understand.
If I asked Funkee to sit and she doesn't go into the CIT,
and I know that I've trained this and she really does understand it,
what you want to be careful of is you don't go, Oh, you didn't listen.
Get my treat out, show her the treat, sit,
and then reward her because very smart dogs will start to learn to just ignore
the first command and wait for you to pull food out.
So there's going to be a point in the training where you're not going to default
back to the food in the early stages.
When our dogs aren't really having a clear understanding,
we are going to do that. We're going to help them.
Just like I showed you with the pineapple command.
I went back to using food because I knew Funkee didn't know it yet.
I needed to be in training mode.
But if I've asked my dog to do something that I know she's been trained to do,
and she's just maybe a bit distracted or she's being a bit bratty in the moment,
I'm not going to pull up food. I might use you know,
a leash or a gentle placement instead. So again,
if she's standing and I ask her to
stand,
wait for a second and I asked her to sit and she doesn't rather than pulling
food out, I might repeat the command, sit, good girl.
And then just gently place her in a position. Good girl.
And I'm not going to reward her for that because I kind of had to help her to do
it. I might patent praiser and then I might try this. Okay.
Sit. Yay. That's it. And once she's done it on my command.
I can use the food to reinforce her. So Funkee.
Doesn't train me to get the food out in order to get her to listen.
I train her that if you listen to me, the food may come your way.
Otherwise, I'm going to make sure that you understand that you need to listen.
When I ask you to do things, and it's not about being mean or nasty,
it's simply about calmly following through teaching your dog,
that you're not just going to pull treats out in order for them to listen.
You expect them to listen.
All of the time using treats in your training is not as simple as just saying
yes. And then giving your dog a treat.
There's actually lots of different ways that you can use food that can really
amplify your dog's performance or their ability to listen to you.
A lot of people say to us that they struggle with training their dog with treats
because they're not interested in food, or they don't find food very valuable.
And sometimes what can happen is we can teach our dogs that food isn't very
valuable by giving them access to it. All of the times,
something that you may consider avoiding is free feeding your dog.
So leaving the bowl of food out and letting your dog kind of graze throughout
the day, it really changes the excitement that breakfast time or dinner time.
In fact,
one of the really great things that you can do to amplify your dog's motivation
to work for food is use the dog's breakfast or their dinner as part of your
training time. When we have young puppies you know, several times a week,
their meals are given with hand feeding and I will take a handful of food of
their kibble and all practice,
some sits and downs responses to name all for their actual meal.
It's a time when I know my puppy's already hungry and I can use it to, you know,
have five or 10 minutes of bonding,
time over food that the dog's already excited to get in the first place.
There are going to be times when you have the best treats in the world,
and you're still not going to get any results. You know,
just changing the value of food. Isn't always the answer.
It can help a lot of the time, but it's not always the answer.
And if you find that you're in an environment where you could literally shake a
steak in front of your dog's face, and they're not really gonna react to that,
you're going to need to go in different directions.
And what that dog's telling you in that moment is the environment that they're
in is too overwhelming. It's too distracting.
And what we don't want to be doing when we're training our dogs is putting them
in a situation where it's too easy for them to fail or to ignore us.
If the value of the food yeah.
Is not persuasive enough,
make sure that you're aware of the environment that you're training and you
might need to avoid going to those dog parks or having your dog around a ton of
people or those particular distractions,
until you're able to build on more success in a quieter environment.
Your dog has a little bit of a,
more of an understanding of the skill or the expectation that you're looking
for.
And then slowly increase the distractions so that your dog is able to function.
Often you can fix things with,
with great value treats and the dog will learn to choose that over other things.
But that's not always the answer. Sometimes it's not about the food.
It's about how you're interacting and what type of environment and structure
you're providing for the dog. In that moment. Now I mentioned the word jackpot,
and this is one of my favorite things that I get to do when training my dog.
So jackpot rewarding means that when your dog does something extra awesome,
you're going to say yes, and then give them a jackpot reward,
which means not just one tree, but several treats in a row.
Now this needs to be done in a very particular way,
in order for your dog to feel like they've hit the jackpot.
So if you have several treats in your hand,
try to avoid saying yes and giving them all of the treats at once in your dog's
mind, it's basically just getting one big treat.
What actually affects more change in your dog's mind and their feelings is to
say yes, and then feed once twice, three times, four times, five times,
and just keep going. And as you're delivering the food,
you're going to actually see your dog get wide-eyed.
They might salivate and start to go, whew, man, this is awesome.
And so we cha we save those jackpot rewards for when we've asked her dog to do
something and they just knock it out of the park,
or I love to do it when I've my dog offers to do something for me before I've
even asked, like, pay attention to me around distractions.
Sometimes I'll even say the word jackpot and then give them a series,
high value rewards. So they know what they've just done is absolutely amazing.
Now,
if you're wondering what a day in our household looks like when we're training a
puppy,
and if you'd like to have a schedule on how to train your puppy throughout the
day, check out that card right there.
And if you'd like some specific advice on how to train your puppy,
make sure you check out our Puppy Essentials online training course,
where you can work with one of our McCann instructors to make sure that your
puppy training process goes as smoothly as possible.
The link is in the description and below.
And on that note, I'm Kayl McCann Happy training.