Training without treats

At puppy class last night with Womble and there was a new couple there with two working Lab pups that looked around three months old. They were training them to be gundogs when they are older. The pups were very attentive and the couple were giving lots of praise etc. but no treats. When they trainer offered the lady a piece of chicken as a lure to help her pup learn the 'down' command she refused.

What are the benefits to NOT using treats? Tbf the Labs were doing really without them, better than an Estrela pup would anyway! I always find using a lure and reward made life much easier and of course once the behaviour is learned you can phase out the food.

Any thoughts?

"Treats" are not only food!

A "treat" is an incentive to a dog, but there are many other incentives to dogs, and those dogs which are not "treat" motivated may:

Not be hungry enough to eat (one of the benefits of using the daily ration for training and never feeding food for free in a bowl)

Be too aroused to take treats

Not find food incentivising (reinforcing)

I would suggest that perhaps the fact that these dogs were destined for gundog work may be the underlying reason for the owners not using treats.

Many in the gundog world have very strong anti food views!

A list of other incentives here:



http://www.clickerdogs.com/listofreinforcers.htm

I wish i had done something like that with my lab! hes started to get a bit podgy because of the treats while training lol! so iv started to reward with praise only for now -- much to marleys annoyance but hes doing ok but it was easier with the treats!

I think it depends a lot on the dog.

I use whatever works. The majority of Enyas training as a pup was done with toys as she had a funny tummy for a while.

Some dogs just won't take food.

Unless you are going to wait for the behaviours to happen, I would imagine there is a bit more 'hands on' without using a lure.

Possibly - if these guys are going to be Gundogs, they are kenneled a lot? I have observed that dogs who have that bit less human contact are much more willing to work for it.

My dogs are with me pretty much 24/7 so I am not as interesting to them as I would be if they saw me for maybe 4 hours a day.

Why not just cut his food down and use that for training?

Yes they were a little more 'hands on'. The pups have been learning sit, down and stand and without the lure they were being 'placed' into the positions. I don't think it was that they wouldn't take food, more that the owners were against the idea of using food.

If they are of the school of thought that "modelling" dogs into position is the preferred mode of training, then I very much doubt food would be on the agenda.......

This is what I had assumed. Why are gundog people 'anti food'?

I'm not saying it''s wrong - of course there are many ways to skin a cat....just wondering why food rewards would be seen as a bad thing.

Because they think it makes the dog spit out the dummy/game before bringing it tenderly to hand.

On the course I ran on Sunday an attendee had the same school of thought until I demonstrated how using food CORRECTLY does not ipso facto lead to this, any more than any other methods of training does.

As in all methods, it is the execution of the training that is key.