Originally Posted By: Quinn&GraysonYou know, interesting enough, my family friends bought a program called The Perfect Dog. The trainer is adamant against training with treats. He says that LOADS of positive praise is really all the dog needs, and it's better because the dog will not learn to expect treats in order to behave...or something like that...
What is your take on that, Smeagle?
My take is that it's just plain stupid not to use what motivates your dog the most
I have basic doggy manners I expect from my dogs when we're in the house etc, and I don't give them treats when they demonstrate these good doggy manners i.e. sitting nicely at the door if they want to go outside/come in, not jumping up on visitors, getting off the furniture when I tell them to etc.
However, I'd love to see him come out and train my beagle or my Siberian for that matter and ask them to purely work for praise
He'd get no where fast. When training or *teaching* basic manners I *always* use what motivates the dog most. I train Daisy in food drive, so there is no way I'd eliminate using food in training, even when we get to the stage where we are competing in trials (you can't take food/toys etc into the obedience ring, but I once we've finished, I will release Daisy to her food reward).
I also expect a different level of response when we're training, as opposed to just being in the house. When we're at home, I expect the dogs to comply with my commands and the house rules, but it's all pretty casual. When I take Daisy out to train I want 110% focus, I expect her to comply instantly with my commands. Because I use her food drive to my advantage when we're training, I also expect her to give me lots of drive and eagerness to work. I have trained Daisy to learn that when I give the words 'ready to work' that I'm about to reward her in food drive, so every time we train I give her that cue so she knows what is coming and what level of response I expect from her.
Just because I use food in training, or often when I'm teaching a new behaviour, does not mean that I have to use it all the time. I use it every time we train, because I want Daisy to have that awesome level of response and drive that I can only get when I train her in food drive. However, I rarely treat the dogs when we're at home and they are demonstrating behaviour that I expect because I raise my dogs to have good manners. Sure, I might use treats to train that behaviour initially, but I rarely use them once the behaviour becomes a habit.
If you had a dog who had tonnes of food or prey (toy) drive, why <span style="font-style: italic">wouldn't</span> you want to use it to your advantage? Not all dogs are interested in working for praise.