[nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?

[Daryl Marie]

Viviana,

My dog does (have a mild scavenging problem, but it was much much more severe when we first got home.  If she is stressed, she tends to revert back to it, but the severity is NOTHING like it was.
We never used treats during training, either during the formal guide dog training or in my in-home placement, with one exception; I did use treats if she did perform a task she had struggled with for days/weeks.  I don't think that occasional treat made her a scavenger...

Daryl


----- Original Message ----- From: Vivianna via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users <nagdu at nfbnet.org> Cc: Vivianna <irishana at gmail.com> Sent: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 23:50:30 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?  ok, here goes a contraversial post. i am reading a load of posts about folks having problems with their dogs grabbing things off the ground. it seems that, this is the most common problem that folks seem to be having with the second being dog distractions. do you think that, since many schools are using food to train the dogs that this problem has come up? i have had several guides and have never had a dog try and carry things around. i also never use food as a reward for my dog. i am just so totally against feeding my dog treats in order to get her to guide me properly.  from what i read, dogs are grabbing things off the ground while actually guiding, while lying on a bus or train, in restaurants, in stores, while relieving, etc. for me, and, this is just my own preference, i could not work with a dog that did this. i can put up with some behaviors but, this is definitely not one of them. folks seem to think that it’s ok to treat the dog for good behavior and then they wonder why he’s so focused on food. i have even had 3 labs and, they didn’t want to carry things around. for a pet, yeah, maybe it’s cute to see the dog carrying around toys in public, but, a guide dog? this should be a professionally trained dog doing a professional job, looking out for the handler. i think that, if the dogs were trained without the use of treats this would be way less common. this is all only my opinion and things that i, personally could not handle. i have probably offended some but, maybe, i may just caused some to think about the food-based training a bit. Vivianna  _______________________________________________ nagdu mailing list nagdu at nfbnet.org http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nagdu: http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/crazymusician%40shaw.ca