Answerfoodintraining

Food in Training

 Question: When can I stop rewarding my dog with food? What if my dog doesn't want to eat?

Answer: This is where the instructor has to resist the temptation to say "the
longest time a dog has ever gone without eating and survived is about 70 days".

But seriously, you will be feeding your dog almost every day, so look at it this way: - you can either give your dog all his food as a freebie - which is all very well, but it doesn't help with training and it is rather boring for the dog - or you can feed him when he demands food from you (which I strongly advise against), OR - you can make him work for at least some of it. So yes, you will be using food in some way for the rest of your dog's life, so why not make use of it?

The main thing that you want to ensure is that you don't have to have a piece of food in your hand or waving in front of your dog's nose to persuade her to do something for you in the first place. The main role of food in training is to reinforce an action, so that your dog will be more likely to do it again. A reward comes after the dog has done something. It should not be used as a bait or bribe to persuade the dog to do something in the first place.

One style of positive training is called "lure-reward training".

You can use food as a LURE, which means you have a piece of food in your hand, and as your dog follows your food hand down, she ends up in a drop position (for example). Then you give her the food, which becomes a REWARD for going into the drop. This is called lure-reward training. It is a way of getting a dog started, and it is commonly used with puppies.

However, you then go on to the next stage, which is that the dog learns to drop when you give a voice or hand signal, without you having a piece of food in your hand. In other words, you phase out the LURE. But you still give your dog a piece of food as a REWARD. The food can be produced from your pocket or somewhere else. The important thing is that you no longer have to use food (waved under your dog's nose) to get the behaviour you want. But you do continue to use it as a reward while you are establishing that behaviour.

The other main style of positive training is called "clicker training".
There are some questions and answers about clicker training included below.

Q. "When can I stop rewarding my dog with food?"

A. The general rule of thumb is:

- reward very generously when you are first teaching your dog a new behaviour

- then continue to reward often but a bit more selectively when you are consolidating and finetuning what your dog has learnt

- gradually  reduce how often you reward - it is a big mistake to go
from rewarding all the time to not rewarding at all - it results in your dog no longer responding.  If you reduce the rewards gradually, your dog will continue responding, despite the rewards becoming few and far between.

- to maintain what your dog has learnt, give occasional food rewards along with a variety of other rewards (such as praise, patting, throwing a ball or opening the door to let your dog inside).

Q. What do I do when my dog does not want to eat?

There can be various reasons for this.

First of all, you should make sure your dog is not sick or physically injured.

Some dogs are overfed, and work better if you reduce their ration. This does not mean you have to starve your dog. It simply means you should feed at a level where the dog is adequately nourished, but keen to eat.

My general rule of thumb is "train first, using rewards, then if the dog was keen to work for the food, give what ever is left in the bowl later."

If you have a dog who really is not into eating, you might have to give nearly all her food in training, rather than free feeding in a bowl.

Some dogs get enough freebies that they are unwilling to work for food. Leave the food bowl down for no more than five minutes, rather than leaving food out all the time for the dog to snack on. Avoid giving "treats" as freebies or tidbits from the table. It is better to teach your dog that they should do something to earn the good things in life, including food and attention from you.

If you are away from home a lot and you are concerned that your dog is bored or destructive, you can give some of her daily ration during the day, but use it to make her life more interesting. Scatter little pieces of dry food all over the lawn, so she has to hunt for them. Bury a bone a sand pit. Stuff food into a Kong or treat ball. These are toys that have food inside them, which the dog can get at slowly, and it keeps them occupied. This approach is used in zoos to keep animals active. It is called "environmental enrichment".

Some dogs will not be interested in food if they are more interested in something else. For example, if they want to play ball or play with other dogs in the park, food can be low on their list. You might have to teach an action using food rewards in an environment with few distractions, then use a ball as a reward in the park. If you say "sit" and don't throw the ball unless your dog sits, this is still positive reinforcement, using a toy as a reward instead of food. The best trainers use a variety of rewards, but food is the easiest to control.

The other reason that dogs are not interested in food is that they get stressed. This happens especially in group classes, with sensitive dogs. They sink into their boots and lose their appetite. The solution is to find out how to relieve the stress. When the dog starts to show an interest in food again, it is a sign that she is starting to relax. A dog has to be alert (but not over-excited) and relaxed in order to learn from a training session.