Dog Health Questions: Positive Dog Training Using Food?

I have been doing a lot of research on dogs and am so far a big fan of Cesar Millan's (calm down people, I unlike most, know that his "forceful" techniques seen on his show are used for dangerous, aggressive dogs, and not training). If you actually read his book, you would know that he is full of information on how dogs should be properly treated as far as exercise, discipline, and then affection. That being said I am looking up positive reinforcement dog training which often uses treats. My question is, when your dog associates a command with a treat, and then you take that treat away, and expect them to do a command, won't they miss the treat? I understand that you are suppose to replace the treat with affection, but they are not the same thing to a dog. Can you just use affection and not treats in training?

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You gradually take the treat away, however not completely. Think about it like a slot machine. People will sit there for hours and pour the quaters in hoping for that one win, they will keep trying because we are "trained" to know that it is possible that the next time we drop in the money, we could win.

So in the beginning, give the dog a treat every time they preform the command. Once they have it down SLOWLY start taking the treats away, once every other time, then even more distance. The trainer I've been using has said once every 5 times is a good place to be. It has worked wonderfully with my pup. Good luck!

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• yes you can. i for example, had a dog that wasn't interested in treats, and only worked for my affection. but that isn't most dogs.
  
  dogs live to please a pack leader. the treats are just a bonus. if you are coupling treats with another positive reward like a verbal or loving touch then when you take the treat away, he will still associate doing the command with a good feeling. if he knows he is pleasing you and you are otherwise doing everything to make yourself a respectable leader, you shouldn't have any issues when you remove the treat


• No they won't miss the treat because you replace the treat with praise and affection.
  
  You don't cut off the treats cold turkey - it's gradual - combine the treats and praise together, start giving fewer and fewer treats, and slowly increase your use of affection and praise.
  
  I almost never use treats, I always use "GOOD!" or "YES!"


• the idea is to gradually take the treats away so they only get treats every once in a while. this way the dog will still do the behavior because they think 'this might be the time i get a treat!' so they keep doing the behavior in hopes this time will be a treat. i use positive training on my dog and it works wonders! dont let ne one give u crap for it either. trust me some will. :)


• It's best to use treats as a random form of positive reinforcement.
  
  I learned this while in college in my experimental psychology class. We had rats, and the goal behavior was to get the rat to press a level as often as we could. We found rats that were randomly dispensed with a food pellet as reinforcement would press the lever more often than those that were given the food pellet every time.
  
  Reinforcement in behavioral psychology is really a fascinating subject. Amazingly, it works just as well on people as it does on animals!
  
  With my dog, I used treats randomly on a behavior he was still learning. I was consistant in praising and affection with every occurance of a desired behavior. After a few tries where he had the command down pat, I simply eliminated the treats altogether in training, until the next time I was teaching him something new.


• It often depends on the dog.
  
  A friend of mine with a Australian Shepherd took some private training lessons with me & my German Shepherd. Her Aussie responded VERY well to affection as a reward and also treats. But, at first, my GSD would almost ONLY respond to the treats. I think the tummy may speak louder than the heart, though, in almost any situation with any dog... at least slightly. ;)
  
  The deal with the treat is to use it as a quick way for the dog to learn this is good & beneficial behavior. It helps them to make that association pretty quickly. You wouldn't stop giving treats as a reward cold-turkey. You would just require the dog to do the trick/behavior for a little longer before rewarding with the treat. And then, eventually, phasing the treat out.
  
  For instance, one thing I wanted to teach our dog was to come inside from the front yard right away when I called. I did this at first by having the juiciest bloodiest piece of beef liver ready for him in my fridge. Then I'd call him & run inside straight to the fridge (by this time he was chasing after me maybe thinking it was a game or something) and giving him a piece of that liver. (Of course I was praising him as well.)
  
  I did this several times this way. Then, eventually, I would only reward him with a treat every other time. And now, I don't usually reward him with a treat at all. I'll still praise him, though. And every once in a while just to be nice & to remind him that coming in right away really is a good thing, I'll still reward him with a big juicy treat. But I probably only do that once every 3 weeks or a month.
  
  So, I don't think you ever stop using treats COMPLETELY. I do it now b/c I WANT to. But in the beginning, I did it b/c I HAD to in order to "jump start" my dog into doing what it was I wanted him to do.


• My dog would rather have affection. He is Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dogs International certified, and he got through all of his training and certifications WITHOUT treats. Sometimes dogs are smart enough to know when they will and won't get a treat. I also know, through psychology, that unless you teach using the treat occasionally, but not all the time, the dog will just associate the trick with the treat. Once the treat is no longer used, they will reject doing the trick. If you give treats sporadically (not everytime they do the trick), they have a higher success rate of repeating the trick once treats are removed.
  
  You can use affection alone, but otherwise I recommend the sporadic treat method that I explained. I can give you more details if needed as well.