by Pat Gray

Created on: January 16, 2009

Tricks and Treats

Old-school, traditional trainers often frown on using treats in training, for a variety of reasons. The most common argument is "you won't always have a biscuit in your pocket", but I think that's missing the point. A treat is used to reinforce what you are teaching, while you are in a training session, like giving a child a gold star for doing well in kindergarten, while they are learning. The teacher always has a full box of stars and the trainer always has a supply of treats for the training session. Once the child or the dog graduates, the occasional pat on the back or scratch behind the ear will suffice to reinforce the desired behavior.

There are tricks to using teats successfully (and there are ways dogs "trick" us into giving them unearned treats). However, used correctly, treats can win over a stubborn customer or can be used to get the attention of an unruly hooligan. And used with other forms of positive reinforcement and perhaps a bit of clicker training, treats can work miracles!

- Don't over-reward
One common mistake is to use something really special for basic, simple commands, leaving yourself nowhere to go when you have to teach something tougher or when you start adding distractions. Use a bit of kibble from the food bag if you can get the reaction you want, escalate to a biscuit if necessary, then move on to bits of hot dog or bacon when you start working outside or in a group.

- Smaller is better
I use puppy biscuits - barely a mouthful - when kibble stops working, and the dogs think they are getting something special. The puppy biscuits (and the kibble) are just big enough that my dogs know they're getting something, but small enough that the treat disappears quickly.

(As an aside, one of the first things I work on is requiring my dogs to take food gently from my hand - make sure you make this an early, SUCCESSFUL lesson, or take precautions so that you don't loose a finger!)

- Alternative "treats"
Another argument against treats is that they don't work on all dogs, which is quite true. And yes, you don't always have treats immediately available to reward "spontaneous" good behavior (for example, if your noisy dog decides to NOT bark at a squirrel for a change, you have a perfect opportunity to reinforce goodness). Some dogs are quite happy to work for a bit of praise in lieu of a treat - my wild-child loves to have her back scratched just above the tail, and this works as well for her as a treat 90% of the time. Some dogs could

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