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

[Julie J.]

All four of my owner trained guides have been trained with food and I have 
not had a problem with scavenging with any of them. Some of them even got 
people food and still managed to behave appropriately when at restaurants. 
And yes, they were or are highly food motivated dogs.

I think scavenging is determined by two main factors, the dog's natural 
propensity to scavenge, and the previous success/reward for scavenging. Of 
course all dogs will grab stuff, but just like everything else some dogs 
have a stronger tendency to do it.  If early attempts were successful, it 
builds a strong reward system that would be difficult to break.  Imagine if 
you won the lottery the first time you bought a ticket, wouldn't you expect 
to win again?

I think how food is used plays a huge role in how dogs react around food. 
For example if I drop a treat during training, I get out another instead of 
letting the dog grab it from the ground.  Food comes from my hand, no where 
else.  At home I teach food refusal by using food.  It's typically called 
dog Zen or you get what you want by ignoring what you want.

Also I don't think scavenging is an epidemic.  It's just been that a few 
people are struggling with it right now and are asking for help.  Next month 
it will be something else.  That's how topics on the list go.  I've been on 
this list for more than ten years now and we ran out of new topics long ago, 
so we revisit all the old ones for the new people, or older people with new 
issues or just in case someone has had a new thought about something.

Julie
Courage to Dare: A Blind Woman's Quest to Train her Own Guide Dog is now 
available! Get the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXZSMOC
-----Original Message----- 
From: Vivianna via nagdu
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 12:50 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Vivianna
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


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