Should I Train My Dog Using Treats?

One of the most basic ideas in dog training is to reward a dog for doing what you want him to do

. In many kinds of training, such as clicker training and other forms of positive reinforcement, people use treats and other kinds of food as the reward, the pay off, the "jackpot." Is this a good idea or not? Do you want your dog to be motivated in his training by treats? What are the pros and cons?

People who train their dogs using positive reinforcement (which includes clicker training) point out that training should be fun for a dog. Therefore it is necessary for the dog to be motivated to learn. One of the best motivations for any dog is often a treat or other food item. Not only does the treat reward the dog for what he has just done, but it lets the dog know that he has done something good. For instance, you may be teaching your dog to sit. When he actually does sit and you praise him and give him a food treat as a reward, the dog is both excited about the treat and he associates the treat with doing what you want him to do -- sitting. This means that he has learned that doing what you want produces a result that he likes. If he does what you want again (sitting when you ask) it should produce more favorable results (another treat). In this instance, using the treat to reward the dog is helping him learn the desired behavior.

Critics of training with treats maintain that using treats to train a dog produces a dog that is too dependent on food. They say that dogs trained with treats may not obey the owner if there are no treats present. If you remove the food reward, they say, then the dog has no more motivation to obey the owner.

This can be a valid criticism unless the owner/trainer is careful to begin rationing treat rewards once a behavior is learned. Using the sit example again, once your dog knows how to sit when asked and is rewarded when he does so, the owner can begin to vary the command in different ways and ask for more from the dog before giving a treat. For example, the owner can ask the dog to sit on the left side in the heel position before giving the treat reward. Or the owner can ask the dog to sit in front with eyes on the owner's face before rewarding. The owner may also begin to taper off the food treats and add more praise and petting instead of treats as rewards. It is important to periodically give your dog a big payoff for obeying, so you can bring out the food treats again at a time of your choosing to keep your dog interested.

Training with treats and giving them as rewards is a very useful way of training dogs. However, some dogs may not be as food-motivated as others. For some dogs human praise is a more effective reward; or playing with a favorite toy. It's really up to the owner to find his dog's special "buttons" and learn what works best to motivate the dog to learn.

by: Tristan Andrews

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