Why do dog trainers use food to change a dogs behaviour?
When we are changing a dog's behaviour we are governed by a set of behavioural rules that exist in nature.  We know that all behaviour is driven by the consequences that happen after it and this means in order to train our dogs to do a behaviour, we must create a consequence that causes then to want to do the behaviour more.

We call it positive reinforcement when the dog gains something after a behaviour that causes them to do that behaviour again.

Dog trainers use lots of different things to positively reinforce dogs behaviour, such as play, toys, opportunity to go on walks, sniffing, etc.  However since dog's need to eat, and generally love at least some foods, we use part of the dog's daily calories to reinforce behaviours we like.  Food is convenient because we can carry it easily, we can do lots of repetitions while our dogs are learning something new, we can use lots of variety and generally our dogs love working with us when they get lots of the things they love.

So why do treats not always work?

Not all rewards are actually reinforcing

Blue was a cocker spaniel that liked to run great distances on walks.  Sometimes he would come back when his human called, but mainly he didn't.  The times he did come back his human gave him a gravy bone which he ate with enthusiasm.  However, he still ignored him most of the times.  When I suggested that he gave him 3 gravy bones instead of just one, Blue started coming back almost every time his human called and then when we swapped to 3 small pieces of chicken, Blue not only came back more quickly, but didn't run as far away in the first place. 

When I am using food to reinforce a dog's behaviour I always consider did the behaviour I want happen more often or with more enthusiasm the next time I ask for it.  If the answer is no, then the piece of food I gave was just a reward and not reinforcement.  I then have to think about using different food or bigger pieces.

I know some dogs who will literally jump through hoops for a small piece of raw carrot and others who need steak to keep them motivated .  So remember what reinforces one dog's behaviour might not work with another.

It's also worth remembering that what motivates your dog can change depending on the environment and distractions around.  A piece of kibble might reinforce your dog's sit in the kitchen but nothing less than steak will work in a busy park.

Are you reinforcing the behaviour you mean to?
When I observe people who are struggling with their dog's behaviour, one of things I frequently observe is that the owner only get's food out once the dog begins doing the unwanted behaviour.  As soon as your dog is aware you have food or about to get food, you may reinforce the behaviour they are doing at that exact moment.

Ideally we want to reinforce behaviours we like rather than wait until the dog is doing something we don't like and then getting food out in an attempt to bribe the dog into behaving how we'd like.

Missy is a dog who liked to jump up on people visiting the house, she is a big dog and it was hard to push her down.  Every time people visited Missy jumped up on them and sometimes would push them over or hurt them.

When I entered Missy's house, she immediately jumped up on my and I nearly fell against the door, her embarrassed human rushed to get a treat and held it to Missy's nose.  As soon as she smelled the treat she got down and her owner told her she was a good girl and gave her the treat.

Missy's human thought she was rewarding Missy for getting down, but in fact what she was doing was reinforcing Missy's jumping up by showing her the treat while she was doing the unwanted behaviour.

Have you created a chain of behaviours?
Sometimes what people inadvertently do is wait until a problem behaviour is finished and then reward their dog with a treat but the dog then learns in order to get the treat they should do the problem behaviour then stop and do something else.

Jacob is a dog who came on group walks with me.  As he got a bit older he slowed down and I didn't need to recall him as often.  Accidentally this probably meant he got less treats.  I began to notice that Jacob started sitting down and waiting while me and the other dogs walked on.  After a few moments I would notice and call Jacob to me.  He'd then get his reward.  After a while I began to realise Jacob was doing this more and more often.  He'd learnt that in order to get me to recall him, and then receive his recall treat, he should stop and wait until I noticed he wasn't with the group!  Even us dog trainers make errors from time to time!

I resolved this by making sure I noticed when Jacob was keeping up with the group and reinforcing this behaviour, rather than letting him fall behind.

Is your dog not feeling in the mood for treats?
Sometimes people tell me their dog just won't eat treats, even tasty ones like steak or liver, in certain environments and this is almost always a sign that the dog is feeling some sort of big emotion. 

If you think of the last time you went for a job interview, or perhaps the dentist, and just couldn't face your breakfast before you go.  Our dogs can feel like this too.   This can really become a problem when our dogs feel big emotions about every day events, like going for a walk or walking past other dogs.

Sometimes it's not anxiety that affects our dog's appetite but excitement instead and while it's good that are dog's feel excited about life, we need them to be able to also be focused so we can keep them and other dogs and people safe.

With dogs who's behaviour is effected by big emotions it's necessary to understand what is causing the dog to feel the way they do and then help them develop skills that improve their ability to cope in the environment.  There is no single answer but instead lots of ways we can train our dogs how to have better self control when they are excited and confidence when they are feeling worried.

Ben was a cockapoo who pulled on the lead.  His owner tried giving him treats when he wasn't pulling and sometimes Ben ate them and sometimes he ignored them.  Regardless of whether he ate them or not, Ben would relentlessly pull forward.  Nothing appeared to change his behaviour.  When I assessed Ben's behaviour it became clear that he found being outside a little bit overwhelming.  There were so many smells, sights and sounds and Ben struggled to cope with them all, especially when restricted by a lead.  Once we implemented a training plan that taught Ben how to slow down and process all the different things he came across outside, he began to be able to eat and enjoy his favourite treats.  However, because Ben had learned how to cope better with his lead and being outside he no longer felt the need  to rush and he just naturally started to walk by his owners side! 
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Have you practised the behaviour enough?
When we teach our dogs we often think they understand the words we say, but dog's don't think the way we do and when we are training them they take in the whole picture rather than pick out specifics like the word we say.

So if you teach your puppy to sit, while you are in the living room and your puppy is facing you, but then tell your puppy to sit when you are outside and you are both facing in the same direction, it's not that your puppy is disobeying you it's that she does not understand you because the context is completely different and the word sit is completely meaningless to her.

In order to know that my puppy understands that when she hears the word sit, she should plonk her bottom on the floor, in any environment.  I must train it as a new behaviour in as many places as possible.  My training plan might look like this;
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Teach puppy to sit on my left side, right side and in front of me.
Locations - Livingroom, garden, hall, driveway, outside supermarket, park
Variations - When I'm standing, sitting down, sitting on floor, looking away from puppy
Distractions - music on, people walking passed, toy in my hand, dogs near by, etc

As you can see the list of variations is endless.  While sit is a relatively easy behaviour behaviours like recall need broken down too.  My dog Velma finds life very exciting.  She loves squirrels, new smells, other people, rubbish, deer scent, new places, etc, etc.  When I was teaching her to come when called, I needed to break down all these different distractions and train her recall as a completely new behaviour over and over until she was able to respond around lots of different distractions.

So if you find that treats just aren't working to change your dog's behaviour it's probably not treats that are the problem but the way they are being used.

Are there situations where you think you have reinforced the wrong behaviour or where your dog is feeling too big emotions?  Go over to my facebook post and share your story.

We've all been there...  We're in the park and our dog does something we would rather they didn't.  Whether it's barking, not coming back, rolling in poo, you can bet someone else will notice and then offer you advice.  The advice usually goes along the line of "my dog did that and I just did X once and he never did it again" or "my Uncle Sam's dog used to do that and he just did Y to her and it stopped it straight away". 

While the person offering advice is usually doing so from a place of kindness and a desire to help, often you will be left feeling further embarrassed by your dog's behaviour. If you have no other strategy you may feel compelled to follow that advice.  You many even feel peer pressure to carry out an action on your dog you are not entirely comfortable with. 

Some of us even seek this sort of advice from other's when we feel stuck and don't know what to do, and then we feel like it's our fault when it doesn't work out like expected.

So many of my clients come to me, feeling like failures because lots of people have given them advice, often conflicting, and none of it has worked.  I feel so much sympathy for them because this sort of advice nearly ruined my relationship with my dog, Bertie.

​When Bertie was a puppy I had an embarrassing problem with him.  Whenever we were outside he would bark, non stop.  It could start at any point on a walk and it didn't matter where we were, how long we'd been outside or who else was about.  Once Bertie started barking he often wouldn't stop until we were home.  It felt like my worst nightmare, as I hate people looking at me and now not only did I have a cute puppy but I had a very noisy one.   

It was obvious that Bertie was feeling anxious and finding things difficult but since this could happen anywhere, at any time normal puppy socialisation and just general life became very challenging.

The advice that was given to me by passers by, another trainer, a vet,  a cockapoo facebook group, people I know and commercial dog walkers nearly ruined my relationship with Bertie and destroyed what little confidence he had.  The advice included,
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• Ignore him
• Absolutely do not pick him up because he is only barking so you will pick him up
• As soon as he starts barking, I should give the lead to someone else who would take him away from me to teach him a lesson.
• He must be very spoiled.  You need to teach him you're in charge.
• Give him a treat when he stops
• Walk faster so he has to run to keep up and he will forget to bark
• Hit him with a garden cane every time he barks
• Tell him NO very firmly as soon as he barks
• He knows he's making a fool of you, don't let him away with that
• He's doing it for attention, wait til he is quiet then give him attention

Apart from hitting him with a garden cane (!!!) most of the advice is the normal sort of advice the general public and uneducated dog professionals will give when a person has a problem with their dog excessively barking.

The problem with this advice, and all advice of this kind, is that people giving it were either not qualified to or had not had a chance to observe Bertie before, during or after his barking episodes.  They were not present to witness how Bertie reacted to any actions I took to modify his behaviour and crucially they did not understand why Bertie was actually barking. 

Sometimes people gave advice based on the emotion (often irritation) they felt when in the presence of a barking Bertie and unintentionally most of their advice was about stopping the annoyance of being in the presence of a barking puppy rather than considering why Bertie was behaving that way.

​I only followed one piece of advice given to me and that was to ignore Bertie when he was barking and then give him attention when he stopped.  Fortunately for Bertie I had already learned a lot about dog training and knew  I should monitor how effective this was in changing his behaviour.  It quickly became clear that this was making Bertie much worse.  

Luckily for Bertie and I, we had a good friend who walked with us frequently and although she didn't have any advice to give on Bertie's actual barking, she listened to me and encouraged me to follow my heart and be as kind as possible.

Once I was able to understand Bertie's barking behaviour better and implement my own training plan I started to see improvements in Bertie's confidence and his barking began to disappear.  My training plan didn't include any of the suggestions made by others.

Puppy Bertie taught me several crucial lessons that I carry with me as a dog trainer now.

• You can't effectively change a dog's behaviour without understanding why the dog is behaving that way in the first place.
• There is no one size fits all method of providing puppy socialisation (or any sort of behaviour change) and anyone who suggest there is, should be distrusted.
• If you are applying someone's advice, then there needs to be a way of monitoring the effects and adjusting or changing your training plan.
• You do not have to follow anybody's advice if it makes you uncomfortable.
• Kindness matters.
• When giving advice, people will often try and resolve their own issues first, even at the cost of you or your dog.
• Avoiding situations where your dog behaves in a problematic way is a perfectly acceptable temporary solution.
• Ignoring a dog who is using problematic behaviour to seek your attention will not help if you do not resolve the issues that cause your dog to want to excessively seek your attention.  (look out for a whole blog on the topic of attention seeking!)

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I was lucky that Bertie came into my life when he did.  The lessons he taught me have directed my path of learning and shaped me into the trainer and I am now.  When working with any dog, I always seek to understand why a dog is behaving the way they do first, before I create solutions or offer advice.  

When a person gives you advice that is based on "it worked with my dog" remember that is the story of one.  It may work for that one dog but it doesn't mean it will work for other dogs.  When I, or other ethical dog trainers, give you advice, it is based on our skills of observation, understanding of dog behaviour, learning theory, behaviour analysis and we create a training plan specifically for your dog, your lifestyle and your environment.  We then teach you the skills to train your dog and adjust the training plan as necessary.

If you feel bombarded by advice, just remember you can listen to it, but you don't have to act on it.

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