This is really a follow on from Snowbunny's advice on the release thread. I think I've got the idea of rewarding both on the boundary and releasing from it and proofing the behaviour. At the moment my rewards are mostly food based and Inky is very keen on food but I'm wondering if that has caused a problem in itself. He's not keen to work for other things so how do I make, for instance playing tug as inherently rewarding as food? Is this me using food incorrectly, I try not to use it as a bribe but may do inadvertently or am I not using rewards in an exciting enough way. He does love sniffing but how do you actually make that a reward?
If he loves food then there is nothing wrong with using that as his sole reward. The dog gets to decide what is rewarding. You can build value for things like tug games but there is no inherent reason to move on from food if food is Number 1 in his world. If you don’t already, try using a variety of foods, deploying the most desirable for new or more difficult behaviours or situations. I use food as my dog’s reward, and also incidental things that he wants (e.g. getting out of the car, being released to run around, jumping in a pond...). To use those things as rewards just ask for a behaviour beforehand (e.g. a sit, a wait, a look, a hand touch) and then release to allow the ‘fun’ behaviour to happen immediately. I don’t use tug games because my dog doesn’t love them enough or want to play them often enough to consistently use them as a reward, and I am too lazy to bother building value for them when I can easily use food. We do play tug but just as a game in itself.
@Inky lab hope you don’t mind me asking a quick follow up question on this thread (seems us two have the same topics on our minds at the moment!). If you do want to transfer value from food to tug or retrieving etc. is it just a case of marking during a good tug and then giving a food reward (like rewarding any other behaviour), and at some point if the food is good enough the value will transfer? Or is there more to it than that?
The way to do it is just to make the tug game fun No clicks or food association needed. Here’s an approach you can use: - get a new tug toy made of a material your dog likes to hold (might be stretchy fleece, sheepskin, a ball on a rope, a soft toy on a rope...whatever your dog finds pleasant to hold and can get a grip on. Something you can hold on to securely - that’s also important) - don’t just give the tug toy to your dog. When you bring it home have a game with it yourself. Act like it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen! Be excited! Don’t let your dog touch it - put it in a drawer - later, get it out again and have another game with yourself - repeat the above until your dog is absolutely dying to touch it. - then have a game with your dog. Make your dog chase the toy, moving it from side to side in wide sweeping motions. Let your dog grab it and have a tug game. Keep it moving, make it a party! Swap for a treat if you need to do that to end the game while it’s still exciting - put the toy back in the drawer - repeat the game once or twice a day for a few days. If you’ve been succcessful in building value for it then your dog should be very keen to play with it and that means it’s ready to use as a reward.
Also...keep the toy out of reach. Only you get to decide when to use it. Here’s another approach that uses a clicker to mark the behaviours of grabbing and also dropping the tug object. The click is just used purely as a marker here - you’re not trying to transfer a food association to the tug toy or anything like that. The reinforcer/reward is the tug game. This version is called a ‘controlled’ tug game as you’re building in stop and start behaviours. You can still preface it with the ‘keep the toy in the drawer and play with it yourself’ routine. Note that this article also emphasis the need to keep the toy moving away from the dog - you want to engage the dog in ‘chase and catch’ mode. https://clickertraining.com/node/727
