Using food rewards and training is
pretty universal.
Most people just buy some goodies and
then machine gun them down their dog's
throat. But there is a strategy to using
food and I'm going to show you how
scaling will get you closer and closer
to behaviors that are prompt, precise and
polite.
Ian here with Simpawtico Dog Training and
before we dive into reward scaling
please make sure you're subscribed so
you never miss any of our videos. Also
like our page on Facebook so we can get
better acquainted.
you'll find that at facebook.com/
simpatico.training and don't forget to
check the description below for notes
links and resources about the stuff we
talked about. Now in dog training, working
with food involves the fastest, easiest
and most effective strategies...if they're
done right. Using food rewards is pretty
well accepted now amongst dog owners,
trainers and behaviorists alike but it's
a slippery slope. It's easy to get stuck
using treats as bribes or worse ramping
up treat value over time to keep
interest. Reward scaling is used to
reward excellent effort. We use it to
help a dog understand something new or
to overcome fears or dislike of
something. For example, we may use a basic
reward for training a simple move but
then kick it up if we're helping a dog
overcome reactivity. We may use a basic
reward to teach sit or come but then
give them better rewards for faster or
more stylish responses.
Well how do we do that? Well, for starters
we want to have at least three tiers of
rewards to use: jackpots, treats, and
kibble.
Let's break these down a little bit
jackpots are any food item of ultra high
value. This is the highest value tier and
is only used on occasion. Dogs typically
take longer to chew and swallow these so
save them for the best effort and for
reaching a new goal. The jackpot of
jackpots is called the
ten-thousand-dollar jackpot and it's
something that they only get on very
rare occasions. Treats are the middle
tier and while they're not as enticing
as jackpots they're still pretty darn
good.
This is the group of food rewards you
probably normally think of when you
think "training treat:" small, smelly, and a
good brand are the best choices. The
bottom tier is kibble – good old dry dog
food.
this can and should be used as an
effective training reward. Initially you
want to empower cable to be a reward in
the first place. Remember: it's not what
it is it's what you've trained it to be.
So for puppies up to 18 weeks you should
be exclusively either hand feeding or
feeding from chew toys. And for adolescent
and adult dogs you should be using
regular feeding times and picking up
what's left after 15 to 20 minutes. Do
not just put food down all day.
Listen: mealtime is
a trainable activity just like any other.
If you are not hand feeding or toy
feeding your puppy, or you are free
feeding your adolescent or adult dog by
just leaving the food bowl down all day
you are wasting a tremendously teachable
opportunity. You will not be able to use
reward training as effectively as you
could because you are teaching your dog
– an animal classified as a scavenger – to
take food for granted.
Look at it this way: you can't get
someone who lives in a pizza parlor to
help you move by offering them pizza.
You see what I'm getting at here? Kibble
works excellently for training because
it's nutritionally balanced. You'll be
using a good deal of it so why not use
the healthiest thing available. Many
canine nutritionists recommend that
treats only make up ten percent of your
dog's daily caloric intake, so using
kibble to train makes perfect sense. Now
how do we deploy the different reward
levels? Start with kibble for basic
behaviors.
This will make up the majority of the
work you do with your dog. Use a treat or
a jackpot for difficult things and for
stellar performance. Here are some
specific suggestions. Your results of
course may vary. For basics like sit, down
stand, or stay use kibble to train duration.
Use treats for proofing distance, and use
a jackpot for when they nail both during
a big distraction. For take it, leave it
and drop it, start with kibble then
progress to treats and even jackpots to
proof it. If your dog can leave a piece
of meat on the floor they've really got it
down! For tricks like rollover or play
dead you can probably use a treat in
most cases. Going on their backs can be
spooky for some dogs so use a higher
value reward to get the job done then
you can use kibble for practice and use
treats to shape it and improve
performance. For long distance training I
would probably use treats initially and
jackpots for a fantastic job. Then use
kibble for that, raise the criteria, reward
the new expectation with treats. This way
you keep building and improving. Another
cool way we use reward scaling is when
we working with anxious or reactive dogs.
Use treats for normal work and then
jackpots for when their reaction (or
rather their lack of reaction) reaches a
new milestone. Make sure to consult a
professional to help you in these cases.
We can also use reward scaling to teach
volume and urgency. In emergencies
we tend
to get loud, even yelling. When I get
louder I want the dog to think, "Oh man! this
must be important!"
I don't want a dog to think they're in
trouble which is going to make them
hesitate and possibly make the wrong
decision.
So for example you could practice
recalls with your dog and scale up the
reward the louder you get. Kibble for tone-
neutral, treats for calling loudly, a
jackpot for shouting, and then a
ten-thousand-dollar jackpot for outright
yelling, Then the next time you yell when
they squirt out the front door they'll pay
way better attention. This is just a
beginning list. Your creativity and
ingenuity will open up tons of doors
here for you. A lot of these suggestions
depend of course on your dog's own
tastes.
I personally could use kibble with almost
anything with my dogs.
Although there's such chowhounds I could
probably use scrap metal too...anyway, as we
talked about in the video on phasing out
treats, reducing the number of rewards is
an essential stage in phasing out food.
One way that we do this is we reduce or
scale back the rewards. Behaviors that
received a jackpot may only get a
treat after several repetitions, and even
only kibble after many more. Remember the
key phrase is "more for less." Generally
then we've also raised the bar a notch so
they can still get the treat or the
jackpot they just have to work a little
harder for it.
Let's wrap this up with a quick list of
recommendations for the reward tiers.
Hands down my all-time favorite jackpot
is the Stewart Pro-Treats freeze-dried
liver. DogFORDog peanut butter Dogstreats
are awesome too.
They're not as popular with dogs as the
liver treats but they're certainly
nothing to sneer at either. In a pinch
I've also pulled chunks off of roll
foods like Pet Botanics or Natural
Balance; these are so rich and smelly
that they function well as a jackpot.
Finally pieces of bacon, cheese or
chicken skin are super enticing jackpot
options too, although these are harder to
handle because they can be greasy. You
may want to save these for the
ten-thousand-dollar jackpot situation
when the dog really nails it. A lot of
dogs view many vegetables as jackpots too.
My dogs go bananas for, well, bananas...as
well as carrots and broccoli.
What a cost-effective solution that is!
Stay away from the junky stuff like
Pup-peroni, Beggin' Strips, or Milk-bones.
These and others like them are just as
crappy as McDonald's food. For treats go
ahead and use
the training treats you're probably
already buying. Get things that are small
and smelly so they are enticing and can
be chewed and swallowed quickly. I like
the Pet Botanics training treats and the
Blue Buffalo Blue Bits. Both of those
are USA-made and pretty good quality. If you
shop around with this style in mind
you'll probably be able to find some
more like these. Again stay away from the
things that are bulky or dry and crunchy.
They take too long to chew and swallow
and most brands aren't really that great
anyway. Finally for kibble you'll ideally
want to use your dog's own dry food.
Ostensibly you should pick a good
quality food to begin with and then use
part of their daily ration to train. I
particularly like DogFORDog or Victor
brands. Both are great dog foods with
very small Kibble which works great for
training. If you have a large dog you
might get a little bag of the small
breed version of their food to use for
training. Small breed versions typically
have a smaller kibble which, again, will
work great for training. So there you
have it.
Good luck with using reward scaling and
don't forget to start phasing it out as
early as possible.
Now here's a question for you: what are
your favorite picks for treats and
jackpots? What brands do you like? Which
ones do you avoid? What are some things
you're using that maybe we haven't thought of?
Let me hear from you in the comments.
Don't forget to thumbs up this video if
you learned something useful and remember
to keep learning and keep practicing.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you
soon.
Let's wrap this up with qik...
Blue Bluffalo..."Blue Bluffalo..?"
good God. The....son of a.... Goddammit. Ok, "Blue Bluffalo"...sheesh.