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The rewards that are most often used are praise, play, and food. Praise would include soft, high tones or words, a smile, a relaxed body gesture, a pat, a rub, a scratch on the head or chest, or a hug. Play would include a dance of joy, running and chasing a stick or Frisbee, romping, swimming or playing. It is important that all of these be done with their master. Food has different levels of effectiveness, in that a piece of broiled liver is tastier than a stale dry kibble. The use of rewards in dog training plays an important role in teaching the dog what we want them to do. We call this shaping a behavior; in that, in the beginning, we reward even the smallest attempt by the dog to work toward our goal. As the dog accomplishes each step, he is rewarded. We then build off each small task progressively to accomplish the entire behavior, rewarding each and every step along the way. This is called constant reinforcement since we reward all the ef |
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forts by the dog. We say the dog has learned the behavior when we ask for the behavior and it can be accomplished 80% of the time. Once we reach this point, we move to the second phase of our training in which we change from constant reinforcement to intermittent reinforcement; we may reward three times in a row, then we would reward after five times, then every other time. In other words, the rewards would come in an unpredictable manner. When we withhold rewards, the dog may think that his performance was not good enough to earn the reward. He should strive to do better on the next attempt. It is very important to keep in mind that each dog and handler team is different and that the dog needs constant feedback from the handler about each performance. Even though we might withhold the big reward, we must give them at least a tone as to whether the performance was good or not. |
