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What’s impact of missing your timing of treat delivery for training?
Hi all, hoping you can help. While training for leash reactivity my timing is sometimes off in a couple ways. I begin the treat delivery and we seem to have passed the other dog and my pup has moved on – then she will turn and look back and lunge. Or, she sees the trigger before I do and is already alert and her hackles up. Does this set her back significantly or can we continue as I improve? Sometimes we will return to the house if there are a lot of dogs out and play inside, other times moving to a quiet outside area where she can sniff it out for five or ten minutes helps her relax and we can continue on a different route. Would love to hear what others have found around this.
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9 Replies
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Hi Marj, thanks for posting this topic! This is a really good topic for discussion, and I’m sure our community members will have some helpful suggestions for you.
Timing of your treat delivery can be a tricky skill to master. The good news is you can absolutely continue working with your dog as you improve your timing and handling skills. One suggestion I might make is to give yourself more distance (environment or timing permitting) between triggers and your pup. This will ideally give you more time to react when your dog acknowledges the trigger and so you can intervene sooner.
I’d love to hear from some other members on techniques and suggestions for both improving timing of treat delivery. Does anyone have any additional suggestions that we can offer @HHPS ?
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@HHPS I’ll add to Cait’s great suggestions –
Have you tried using a verbal or mechanical marker like a clicker? This “secondary reinforcement” can be a great way to mark a moment in time when our primary reinforcement (food) is delayed. I personally like using a tongue-click noise as the marker as I always have it with me. ????
To pair the marker (some people call it a bridge) with the food, just “click” & feed a treat. Repeat this 5-6 times and most dogs will catch on quickly that the special sound means food is on the way!
Then, you can use the click noise when you can’t get the food to the dog immediately, though I encourage you to be as fast as possible. I like clicking when the dog sees the “scary thing”.
If we are too close for comfort, we can step further away to feed. If the dog won’t disengage with the visual to turn to take the treat, you are much too close.
What do you think of this idea? Have you tried anything similar?
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Thank you for the suggestions. We went out with a clicker and I left the treat pouch at home. She does respond well to the clicker although also kept looking and making eye contact expecting a kibble reward as she is used to. Once she accepted we were walking without treats she did very well (she communicates by sitting down when on walks to tell me something). Her sitting can be a protest (I want treats) or mean she is cold and wants her sweater on or, in the early morning or evening she will indicate unease with the route we are taking by sniffing the air, staring down the trail or to the side with a paw lift and sitting down meaning she is sensing a predator is in the wooded area or long grass. So we immediately change direction and route and then she is happy to continue the walk in a different direction.
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Thanks for the update, @HHPS Marj! I’m not sure if you meant to leave the treat pouch at home or if that was unintended, but I thought I’d jump in.
It’s an important part of the clicker-training process that every click gets a food treat. I like to refer to the click being a promise.
CLICK = “I promise, you earned a goodie!” … “And here it is!”
If we click and do not feed, over time the click will become meaningless to the dog. And I believe that a promise broken is trust broken, and difficult to restore.
Bottom line: Click ALWAYS gets a treat, even if you are slow to deliver. Does that help?
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Thank you Caitlin, part of the issue has been combining the delivery of 2 things, eg. click and treat while also keeping an eye on her body language and that of the oncoming pup and parent. I will keep practicing and will use the clicker as the primary signal as suggested. ❤????
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Hi @HHPS Looks like we were posting at the same time, so I want to be sure you saw my comment, above. The clicker is never the primary reinforcement, as by itself, it has no value to the dog. It ALWAYS is paired with food. The click means “food is on the way!” I hope that’s clear and helpful. Please let me know if you have questions.
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Got it, thanks so much.
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Hi @HHPS I hear you! A lot of times what I ended up doing with reactive dog clients was what I like to term “pulling over.” For example, I’m working with a mini Border Collie (named Mini!) who is quite reactive to bikes. Whenever we see a bike approaching, we start to increase distance before Mini has registered the bike is even there. Her mom and I pull off the sidewalk onto a grassy median as far as possible from biker; once Mini realizes the bike is there, we are prepared with tasty hot dogs and immediately begin doling them out to her while the bike is in view. Once the biker goes away, so do the hot dogs!
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Thanks Caitlin this is great. We will start today.
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