Rewards are those little things that we give to our dogs in return for something well done. Webster refers to this as a “prize for excellence.” Rewards can come in the form of affection, praise, a motivational treat or a toy. A reward is something that really turns your dog on and motivates your dog to continue to perform well. Keep in mind that a reward is something that is given in return for good, compensation for services rendered.

Rewards given to your dog will help communicate that you are pleased with his behavior. When your dog understands that the reward is a consequence of his behavior, he will be more likely to respond compliantly the next time you make a request of him. Since dogs learn by association, this consequence based training strategy is an effective way to teach your dog. There are a number of things you need to understand about rewards and how to use them.

Experiments that have been done in the past 100 years have indicated that dogs are able to make associations (or consequence based learning) in about one and a half seconds. What that means for the dog trainer is if your dog responds compliantly to a request, you need to reward your dog in one and a half seconds or less for him to understand the reward was a result of his behavior. Timing (one and a half seconds) is critical to your dog making the right association.

The next thing to keep in mind is the application of the reward. For example, if you ask you dog to sit and you reward your dog with either a treat or a brief moment of praise, the reward needs to be deliberate and definitive. Another way of saying this is that the reward shouldn’t be 10 seconds of praise or a giant size milk bone that will take 20 or 30 seconds to consume. It is most effective to use a soft treat that can be consumed in a couple of seconds or praise session that lasts a couple of seconds. Anything longer than two seconds will actually be counterproductive to your attempts to help the dog make the right association.

At least within the context of dog training, rewards are meant to strengthen behavior not inhibit or eliminate behavior. Let me say it another way, you will never stop a bad behavior using rewards. It contradicts scientific learning models and it contradicts nature itself. Let me illustrate what I mean. Let’s say you have an older dog and you decide to purchase a playmate for him. The new puppy thinks that tormenting the older dog is his job.

As tolerant as the older dog may be, at some point the older dog is going to communicate to the puppy, “enough!!” How do you think this older dog is going to get his point across? Is he going to give the puppy a treat or a bone and say, ”go away and chew on this for awhile and leave me alone?” That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? The older dog would more than likely growl, flash his teeth or even nip or bite the puppy to stop the behavior.  

Never reward bad behavior! Even if a dog trainer tells you that you can manipulate your dog into good behavior using rewards, don’t trust that kind of advice. Two of the most common situations where people have been instructed to reward bad behaviors are when dogs jump up and when dogs take something and won’t release the object. The poor advice goes something like this, “if the dog jumps up, turn to the side, ignore the dog and when he eventually sits, reward him with a treat; he will learn in time that when he sits, he will be rewarded and eventually stop jumping.” Or, in the second example, “if he takes something you don’t want him to have, offering him a treat (reward) in exchange for the object.” Common sense dictates the absurdity of such reasoning.

Dogs are too smart to use such manipulative training methods on. In fact, the dog may begin to manipulate you. If you could look into your dog’s mind, he would be thinking something like this; “Let me see now…I remember how to train my owner how to give me that treat…I’ll just run up and jump on her and then sit, now she obligated to give me that treat. Yeh, that’s it…it’s a two step process… I jump first and then sit, then comes the reward… life is great!!” It would be like getting a fifty dollar bill from the police officer who just pulled you over for speeding. Some dogs have a better grasp of the Pavlovian Learning Theory than we may ever know. Just because you read it in a book or off the internet, doesn’t make it gospel truth.

Sixty years ago the training methods were more punitive. Dogs were far more compliant and better behaved, but not too happy. Today we have very happy dogs, but they aren’t very well behaved or obedient. You can have a happy dog that is well behaved, it just takes a little effort and “balanced training strategies.”

Contact Information

Tom Beitz is the owner of the Academy for Puppies and Dogs and is an authorized dealer for Pet STOP Hidden Dog Fences. Tom can be reached at (716) 628-0651 to answer your questions or he can be found on the web at www.smartdogtrainer.com . E-Mail: Tom@Smartdogtrainer.com

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