When Not to Give Your Dog Food Rewards
Learn how to tell when food isn’t the best reward for your dog.
I’m all about training dogs by setting them up to do the behaviors that we like, and then rewarding them for it. Most of the time, for most dogs, the most valuable reward is tiny bits of food, and most of the time, for most kinds of training, food is also most useful and convenient. But … not always.
In several fairly common situations, food doesn’t give you the best leverage for teaching the behavior you want.
When Not to Give Your Dog Food Rewards
In the moment, your dog might want something else more than he wants food. Whatever that something is, try to find a way to use it as a reward. Suppose you’re teaching polite leash walking, for instance. That upcoming fire hydrant may be a lot more compelling than your pocket full of kibble, especially if your dog’s not hungry at the moment and the hydrant’s just been marked by the newest dog to move in down the block. In that case, permission to go sniff is the best way to reward your dog for a glance at you or for walking next to you instead of pulling forward.
Or you might want to teach your fetch-crazy dog to sit instead of jumping on you or barking at you to get you to throw the ball again. Food is pretty much beside the point! Dogalini isn’t interested in your stinking biscuits; she wants to chase that ball. Ask her to sit. The second her butt hits the ground, throw.
Your Dog May Want Something Scary to Go Away
Sometimes the best reward for your dog is to make something worrisome go away.
Nonfood rewards also work best in some kinds of behavior modification. One standard procedure, counterconditioning and desensitization, works by turning problem stimuli into reliable predictors of superdeluxe treats. Say, for example, Zippy is mildly anxious about men with beards; you might deal with this problem by asking a bearded friend to walk by just far enough away that Zippy notices him, but not so close that Zip shows signs of stress. Each time the man walks past, you feed Zippy a piece of chicken. The bearded man predicts chicken, so the bearded man is good news.
But a couple of alternative approaches to fear and aggression instead leverage the insight that what a dog wants most is for the problem stimulus to be far, far away.
The setup would look pretty much the same as for counterconditioning, with your Scary Bearded Guy close enough for Dogalini to notice him, but not close enough to provoke a defensive response. Scary Bearded Guy would just stand there until Dogalini did anything at all that was nonaggressive–sniffed the ground, sat, turned her head away, or flicked an ear, say. You might then move Dogalini away. Or Scary Bearded Guy might move away himself. In either case, Dogalini’s appropriate behavior is rewarded not with food but by giving her something that’s probably more important to her in that moment–distance. Over time, Dogalini would learn that the way to get the reward of more distance from Scary Bearded Guys is to make nice to them. And, over time, making nice might start to come naturally–meaning, Dogalini wouldn’t be upset by bearded men anymore.
When to Use Food with Extra Care
I should also mention a couple of special cases where food works well but you need to use it a bit more thoughtfully than usual. Some dogs act like they’re on crystal meth around any food they especially like. They bark frantically, they jump, they mouth your hand. One fix is to use fairly boring food, like dry kibble. The dog’s still interested but not thrilled out of his mind, so he can concentrate on what you’re trying to teach him. Also, because he’s not going completely wild, you can use the boring food to teach him to take treats gently. Finally, of course, there are those handy non-food rewards, such as play and permission to go out.
Shy dogs also call for judicious use of food. Definitely reward any initiative they take to explore, but don’t lure them close to scary things by using treats.
That goes for human strangers as well as for whatever inanimate objects worry your dog. It’s best if you reward your dog for sniffing or greeting the person. This is because some shy dogs will push themselves past their own comfort zone to get a treat and then snap defensively as soon as they’ve eaten it. Some people figure once they’ve given Dogalini a treat they’re BFF and can glom on to her–not the best outcome for a dog who’s not 100 percent sure she feels safe with new humans.
How to Tell If You Shouldn’t Use Food Rewards with Your Dog
Last, a few dogs respond aggressively when you withhold a food reward. This isn’t common among pet dogs, but if it does happen you should stop training with food for the time being. Here’s an example: I was working with a dog, teaching him polite food bowl manners. It’s easy for most dogs–you ask the dog for a sit or down, then lower the food bowl to the floor. If the dog gets up, the food bowl goes back up too. As soon as the dog sits or lies down again, the food bowl starts heading for the floor.
Almost all pet dogs sail through this lesson, learning after just a few repetitions that the way to get the bowl is to avoid mugging it or you. But the dog I’m thinking of growled at me the second time he broke his sit and I brought the bowl back up. So much for training him with food! A dog who responds aggressively when you withhold a food reward needs to learn frustration tolerance in food-free contexts–for instance, we might start by teaching him to sit briefly before he goes out an open door.
To train most effectively with rewards, food or other, all you really have to do is pay attention to your dog! See what he wants and will work for, be sure that he’s at ease, and then arrange for him to get what he wants in exchange for doing something you like. And that’s about it for today. You can follow The Dog Trainer on Twitter, where I’m Dogalini, as well as on Facebook, and write to me at dogtrainer@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email. I welcome your comments and suggestions, and I may use them as the basis for future articles.Thank you for reading!
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Jolanta holds professional certifications in both training and behavior counseling and belongs to the Association of Professional Dog Trainers and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. She also volunteered with Pet Help Partners, a program of the Humane Society of the United States that works to prevent pet relinquishment. Her approach is generally behaviorist (Pavlovian, Skinnerian and post-Skinnerian learning theory) with a big helping of ethology (animal behavior as observed in non-experimental settings).
