I think I'm lucky that Cage isn't very food-orientated, as I planned to train with treats, but he's not all that bothered about them. It probably wouldn't have worked well anyway by the sounds of your guys' posts!

He prefers people speaking to him more than anything, and I think he prefers to hear 'good boy!' more than getting food

Couldn't agree more, I think we all probably train using more methods than we actually realise as we can never know the exact signals we are giving off to a dog. By that I mean, dogs 'see' and interpret the world through smell...how on earth do we know what 'smells' we give off when we are pleased with them...and what smells we give off when not so pleased or frustrated?????? We can't know how attractive or unattractive those smells are to a dog either. We don't see the world liek they do, so many of their reactions are to things we don't actually see or understand...if you see what I mean.
As long as our methods are kind and work for our dogs...then great.

is it actually proven that dogs can 'smell' fear and all that though? I guess it may be true even if we haven't discovered it yet

When we become fearful we sweat more and adenalin pumps and however many other chemical changes occur...I think it has been proven that dogs can pick up on many 'pheromones' and hormones that we give off. I don't think we really have a clue how dogs see the world...we assume a lot about them, but their sense of smell is their overriding sense...so how can we tell how they interpret the world, as that is totally alien to us????
I think that is totally fascinating...

But this is the first question, where whole this thread started. After one giving example of training without treats of any kind, suddenly everybody started to defend training with food.

I wonder, if we all, convinced 'bout our own method to be the one and only, forgot, what people really ask...? As happened in here as far as I can see.

J

i think though, that most people have said that there isn't only one method...that we are all willing and do try different methods, I think training with treats is part of that????? If people weren't interested in different methods, they probably wouldn't even have read this thread.... The point is, IMO that there is no ONE mehtod for all dogs...

No one method will work for each and every dog, of that I am certain. Actually, perhaps I'll modify that statement. Some dogs will respond more quickly with different methods.

Blondi, with her past history, isn't big on contact, so for example, lavishing her with strokes on a "come" command, does her more harm than good, and she gets stressed. She's certainly more motivated by food so in her case, it works better than all other methods attempted.

However, my previous GSD, Chess, was the complete opposite. I had him since a wee pup and his reward was most certainly attention and praise. Food didn't interest him in the slightest.

Everything is a reward really. My dog wants to go out in the back garden. She could if she really wanted to, and indeed did when we first got her, dash out the door at the speed of light. However, now, getting out into the back garden is a reward, which she has to calmly sit at the back door for.

Playing with her ball is the be all and end all of life for her. Ergo, I now plan the more formal daily training session before she even sees the ball. When we're done, the ball comes out, and that is her wages for the work she's just done for me.

It's just finding the most motivating thing for your particular dog. I know for certain that Blondi's most motivating thing would be to have a run around the fields, but until she can be trusted on recall and around other dogs, she can't yet enjoy that. I'm looking forward to when she can be as I know that will give me much more leverage in our training sessions.

Yep. Food is easiest to us humans. And many trainingmethods are interesting, because when you read about them from the internet, they sound pretty fabulous. On the other side also some techniques written in the net are really so difficult, drives, subdrives, everything, that a human being just can imagine to make himself sound wise. For beginners it is not much help - evyryone, who has read their Raisers have a clue, what I try to say. With food the difficult part is timing and the other one is that especially smaller dogs get pretty fast full and gain weight, which is harmful for their health. With toys and play the problems come, when also play is overdosed, and dog winds up completely drifting away from the area it cab learn. The same thing might happen to extremely greedy dogs. Stressed animal doesn't learn how it should - the same goes with us humans.

But this is really interesting conversation. I will follow, what comes out of it and try to do the video tomorrow - just few more dogs coming to be filmed .

J

It is incredibly interesting I agree!!!!!!!!!

Every method can have it'sproblems, which is why it's best to use a combination.... I think anyway!!!!!!

Hi Jenni This is how I see it in simple terms , in order for a dog to do anything (other than that which is instinctive) it needs motivation. The very first motivators a puppy has are food and warmth obtained from the dam, it will move about in order to obtain these things As a puppy grows, given the opportunity it will bond with humans and humans then modify a dogs natural behaviour with training to fit their lifestyle/requirements(be it companion or working dog).

In order to train puppies we need to motivate them, some breeds are receptive to pack drive (appeasing their leader) prey drive (the will to hunt) but some aren't. As food is already a motivator it is an excellent tool to use to teach most puppies initially. Once a puppy knows what is expected, food as a reward is no longer required.

Does food as a reward fill a dog and make it fat? No, because you deduct the food rewards from the daily food allowance and you can use very small strong smelling non fattening treats like slivers of baked liver.

the initial post asked ...


Yes you can train without food rewards but many of the things regarded as rewards have to be learnt about by dog in the first place (eg walks/forms of play/access to certain things) so it is a matter of finding what best motivates your puppy/dog to learn and in many instances this is food initially .

Jenny I think some of what you were trying to say may have been lost in translation, most of us here were not saying any one training method was the best