No Variety Available In Food Rewards

[Lablover]

Move the food about?

Create frustration, in food drive, by delaying the reward?

Heck, I need a scotch now.

[MonElite]

LL Ill have a malibu and coke while we wait. After all its only 40 more minutes and it will the promised "next day"

[Lablover]

Mrs M. Golly I turn into a pumpkin sooner than I thought.

These questions, give me a headache. Depending on which dog I am training at a particular time and the different requirements, my methods alter to suit.

[dogdude]

If you are looking for odball answers, eat some yourself in front of the dog when its hungry and let it know how good it tastes

[Greytmate]

What could you do to increase the value the dog places on the dry kibble (or any type of reward for that matter) without feeding meals as treats or starving the dog?

One of my dogs places a higher value on a piece of kibble if she thinks that one of my other dogs wants it.

And the fewer pieces of kibble available, the more valuable they are.

[Nekhbet]

dont go making a puzzle out of it. The poor bloody dog will be more confused then a rational, logical, language speaking human will be.

Limited to one food? Make the dog hungry to increase the value of the food. Frankly I rarely use food rewards in training unless the dog is food obsessed, even then I wean them off. My dogs get prey rewards, or learn that something is NOT worth doing because all hell will reing upon them if they dare try it.

Its how I have two dominant strange males who have just met in the room with me here without blood on the walls - they both know that its easier to just get along and not be arses because Alpha Mummy controls all

[Dog32]

dont let the dog eat the food

[Animal House]

Feeding meals as treats???

Sorry - no way, I dont feed commercial food, wouldnt be using dried food as motivator anyway...

I think I may have inadvertantly thrown in a red herring with my last comment so will try to clarify it without giving the game away.

What could you do to increase the value the dog places on the dry kibble (or any type of reward for that matter) without feeding meals as treats or starving the dog?

You would eat it yourself.

[Kavik]

I'm going to vote for build frustration with Lablover. The enthusiasm Diesel shows for his dinner when I use TOT is amazing! And the way I taught Zoe her 'dig' behaviour for the scent detection course was to put food under something where she could see and smell the food but couldn't get to it. Worked really well!

[Erny]

I would make sure the dog was already on a schedule of intermittent reinforcement (food wise). Praise would form a good part of the reinforcement on a consistant schedule of reinforcement.

The intermittent reinforcement (ie food) would be extended by the dog receiving a kibble (coupled with the praise on consistant reinforcement) instead of the usual intermittent tasty morsel until eventually no tasty morsel would form part of training.

I would then introduce praise (on variable levels depending on what the dog did and how well - "successive approximation") onto a schedule of intermittent reinforcement to build on reliability.

[Cosmolo]

Not sure if this is oddball enough,

but if you wanted to increse the value of the dry kibble as a reward you could feed the dog with something that tates awful at meal times so it would appreciate the dry food during training.

[.................]

And the fewer pieces of kibble available, the more valuable they are.

You were definately onto it but it's Erny that hit it on the head.

I would make sure the dog was already on a schedule of intermittent reinforcement (food wise).

In my discussions with the people in question not one single person raised the idea of varying the reward schedule in any way. I thought limiting access to the food would be an easy way of increasing it's value and varying the reward schedule would be a simple way of doing it. I'm not saying it's the only way (there's already been lots of good ideas thrown up here) I was just surprised that it didn't come up.

So, I guess my next question is, do you think I was being fair when I posed the original question and what do you think of the reward schedule idea in regards to that situation?

[Staff'n'Toller]

Not sure if this is oddball enough,

but if you wanted to increse the value of the dry kibble as a reward you could feed the dog with something that tates awful at meal times so it would appreciate the dry food during training.

How would you make the dog eat something that tasted awful?? Dogs aren't stupid, that's a bit cruel don't you think?

The OP's question also stated the only option was one type of food- not two.

I have one dog on a prescription diet, and theoretically she should not have any other food. Luckily the food smells good and is tasty enough that she would be happy to eat it as training treats (and I do sometimes use it with the other dogs for this purpose). But I dont see anything cruel about taking the dog's daily allowance and giving it throughout the day as reward, rather than in a bowl twice a day.

Mel.

[Cosmolo]

We're not talking about lacing the dogs food with poison- perhaps it needs to be worded differently- the normal taste/ value of the dogs meal would be lowered by adding something the dog will eat but does not particularly like. To give an example, a few of my dogs don't really like apple cider vinegar- they'll eat the food, but if i then presented them with the same kibble with no ACV, the value of that kibble would increase.

We're not talking about something we would ever really have to do so its not something i would normally do or recommend. But we're refering to a situation that is very structured- if it was an option i'd just change the motivator- but it wasn't

[Lablover]

What could you do to increase the value the dog places on the dry kibble (or any type of reward for that matter) WITHOUT FEEDING MEALS AS TREATS or starving the dog?

After an excellent morning training, even though I slept in, I call a foul, :rolleyes:

Erny and others at least, could understand a fundamental/basic question.

WITHOUT FEEDING MEALS AS TREATS??? ie a 6-8 week old puppy has smallish meals, and when I trained using food as rewards (lures for a youngster), the treats WERE part of their daily calorie intact.

It will be years before I start another puppy (having 4 labs currently in training), I would not/never use food. Well maybe NEVER, but rarely.

We have discussed various rewards ( and secondary reinforcers ) many times in the past, but certainly a worthwhile topic and question.