Feeding Hands Can Glorify the Beauty

People often say that treats don't work, their dog isn't food motivated or that they would rather only use praise. Some have even said that it is "cruel" to use food based positive reinforcement (I kid you not) – their reason? Apparently a dog should have whatever it wants whenever it wants it. Hmmmm – mostly I only see dogs that have become attention seeking and demanding when that one is employed.

Mostly these comments come from a place of a lack of knowledge and understanding of canine psychology. There is no criticism in that statement, it's just fact and why would the average person who is not a dog trainer or behaviourist know the intimate details of something that someone working in the field spends day in and day out practicing and studying?

Why Learn to Earn Works:

When I set someone up with a new behaviour modification programme I like to start with some basic foundations before moving on to other things. These exercises help improve focus and re-establish the relationship between dog and human which has often broken down or got lost and it develops trust. Sometimes some of the issues that someone wanted help with change or disappear just with the foundations and at the very least (done correctly) things start to improve.

When someone has come to me with a list of problems, we usually find that there are only actually one or two main things to address and all the rest start falling into place and are addressed as a consequence of what we do. This is because the foundations are the building blocks, the A B C of things. Dogs then start to put the letters together to make words and then sentences. Each exercise adds to the other, improves it and refines it – yet the beauty of it is, once learnt, they can be done in any order. Sometimes when we get started there are one or two exercises that are more appropriate than others to learn first so I present them in the most logical order for the dog in question.

These exercises partly my own and partly taken from the original Learn to Earn programme of Dr Sophia Yin and the All or None reward training ideas of Dr Ian Dunbar. During the foundations we set up a series of exercises, presented as a series of games that a dog can win by choosing the right outcome.  These are non-commanded because this builds confidence/self esteem – the dog works out the correct response and is made part of the decision making process.  These games give a dog one thing that he or she can do well – the sit.

The programme allows us to give the dog exactly what he wants and needs – guidance and verbal representative feedback, by allowing him to do what he was bred to do – read out faces by making "giving us focus" part of the exercises.  The exercises require thinking, are tiring for dogs, produce calm, work on the ancient part of the brain (often referred to as the fight or flight part), gives dogs alternative behaviours to perform, builds coping mechanisms and creates new default behaviours.

• Non-commanded work in behaviour modification increases focus – the dog has to pay attention to us and work out the answers – builds confidence and self esteem, decision making and allows choice.  Human has be become more aware of body language and specifics.

• Commanded work in behaviour modification – takes away independence and reduces confidence.  Spoon feeds the dog, doesn't allow for decision making and choice.  Human is less aware.

Learn to Earn provides a dog with resources he can fall back on. It's also like teaching children please and thank you and other good manners.  You want them to continue to do this when they are adults, you don't want to have to keep reminding them when they are 40 years old!

Learn to Earn helps dogs and humans develop a way of communicating, allowing a dog to ask for help and feel supported without insulting his intelligence and should make the process a two way street – eg if a dog reaches a door at the same time as a human either one can say "after you" as we should all do in polite society.  It is NOT about dominance, if the dog gets to the door first, he can go through it!  If the human is ahead of the dog, the dog shouldn't charge through and take him out at the knees (the person might be a child or elderly)… it should all be about interaction between two intelligent beings.

Why sit? It is far easier to give a dog one thing to do rather than try and explain 101 things that dog shouldn't do.  Trying to explain "no" is too complex.  No is too ambiguous and dogs do not do ambiguity – it causes more stress and anxiety because there is no clarity. Sit is one of the easiest positions for a dog to offer and is the one that they do when they are uncertain. Sitting is incompatible with many unwanted behaviours – if a dog is sitting he is not running off, jumping up, running away, playing the you can't catch me game, chasing the cat and so on.

However, there is a little known fact about "sit" – it can be stressful or be a sign of stress.  This is why it is the position dogs offer in situations where they are uncertain.  In Learn to Earn we turn this to our advantage – but BECAUSE it is the position a dog offers naturally when uncertain or under some stress, this is why we absolutely have to turn it into a fun game with many rewards to make sit the most fun thing a dog can choose to do.  This is why commanding a dog to sit is actually not a nice thing to do – especially if he doesn't really understand why he must sit.

Training that teaches owners to command the dog to sit when something stressful is happening are just adding to that stress and because dogs are so trainable and willing, they often perform exercises without truly understanding why they must do them and do them without any choice.  We need to show dogs that sitting is great and not a position of uncertainty. Insisting on sit (or down) in a particular place put the dog in a situation where he is above threshold and right in the path of his biggest nightmare!

We work on helping the dog to communicate with us where he is most comfortable to offer an alternative behaviour and one that is a better option to the one previously practiced. We want to replace an old unwanted behaviour with a new default behaviour. It is important to replace a behaviour or redirect a behaviour that is unwanted because if we just stop a dog from doing something that is making him feel safe or better (even if we don't like it), instead of giving up and accepting his fate, he is more likely to choose something else that might be an even worse option!

The power of food rewards

There are so many reasons why using food based rewards is not only useful but important.

• Food effects the part of the brain that is VERY responsive to the anticipation of food – therefore this is why it is likely, the most effective way of making behaviour changes.
• Food is even more effective at making changes than play.
• In appetitive behaviours motivation is dopamine driven – it is highly flexible and indicative of desire.  It is the active, goal-seeking, exploratory phase of behaviour.  The brain includes several distinct dopamine pathways, one of which plays a major role in the motivational component of reward-motivated behaviour.  It's responsible for many functions, including memory, sleep, mood, pleasurable reward, behaviour and cognition.  It is not difficult therefore, to see why food would be a highly valuable motivator.
• When paired with play, you can have a winning combination for effecting behaviour change.

So why wouldn't you use food?!

A specific word is more effective as a marker than a clicker:

• It allows you to use what you always have with you, your voice.
• In tests it has proved more effective than clicker training alongside interactive games and focus work.
• It allows you to vary the tone of your voice to calm or excite – verbal representative feedback, like playing hotter/colder with children

It is particularly useful when needed for counter conditioning and desensitisation to scary things in the world or triggers such as other dogs.  Great for working with fearful and anxious dogs including reactive issues.

A dog that has been following one neural pathway for many repetitions that route will be the easiest one to follow and will be the default choice.  This it why it is VERY important to practice new behaviour MANY times in easy situations – it takes many repetitions to create a new neural pathway (neurogenesis). We have to make the new neural pathway the easiest one to choose initially in order for it be become the default one in the future.

If we make the dog's motivation the reward (food/play/cuddles) it will make the whole choice feel brilliant and increases success. Dogs don't have to learn to eat so this is the easiest to use, it is naturally more interactive to use all the food and more akin to a dog's scavenger nature.  It is much easier to offer multiple rewards this way (the most effective training tool) and keep a behaviour in place or to make a nice association with something invisible like a state of mind.  Food allows us to say "yes well done" many times a day – for example, 500 pieces of kibble means 500 times we say well done.

Why hand feed?

Dogs don't need to learn to like food! They all need it and it is highly rewarding. By delivering it in a fun way, by using multiple rewards and by adding in the idea of learning to earn, I have yet to find a dog that I couldn't motivate to food. Using a dog's food means that you aren't feeding an abundance of additional treats that might increase your dog's waistline!

• When we hand feed at home, we get more attention for training
• When we hand feed we get the chance to give many hundreds of rewards rather than giving free meals
• Training is faster and more effective – classical conditioning
• Training is easier for owners – they don't have to be expert dog trainers or learn lots of additional techniques especially when using multiple reward delivery
• Hand feeding allows dogs to gain confidence around hands for those that nip or are worried about hands
• Hand feeding allows puppies to like all people and accept being fed by humans – this means that a stranger like a trainer can help a dog in class (for those with puppies)
• Hand feeding the entire meal on a walk when "doing things" that are set up from classes allows training in the environment
• When done on a walk like this the dog is more likely to have more attention in a training hall and other more distracting situations
• Many owners do not have the inclination to praise their dog, especially in public.

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Source: https://leadchanges.net/why-learning-to-earn-and-hand-feeding-at-the-most-effective-way-of-setting-new-foundations-and-creating-new-behaviour-patterns/

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