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

Thu Jul 2 20:06:21 UTC 2015

Hi raven thanks for sharing your thoughts here as I learned the reason that
food is important. Yes I did understand that food bonds dogs with people
sooner but you made me realize that food helps the people they need to be
around in training. Training is not one person but food is important to get
good behavior and train the dog that others need to have the dog do what is
asked of them. You made me think of a day of a dog in training and how many
people may take time with it and yes food helps.

I am on my fifth guide dog and four have been trained with food but the
first two very little of it but the last two more food was used. My first
guide dog had no food reward and she went for food at times. I worked hard
and after a few months she did learn not to go after it.

My Kiara who has been mine eight months tomorrow does not even go after a
food reward when it even drops. When she is in harness she is just not
wanting food that is anywhere but from me.

Out of harness she tries to find food on the kitchen floor so I am very
aware of this and listening for her to go into the kitchen and I can call
her and she comes and sometimes she gets a food reward so I am the thing she
wants not the kitchen floor.

Thanks again and you open my eyes to the more about food reward and benefits
of it Louise and princess Kiara

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Raven Tolliver
via nagdu
Sent: July 1, 2015 8:20 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Raven Tolliver
Subject: Re: [nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?

I'm writing this post from the perspective of a dog trainer and kennel
assistant who regularly works with dogs that don't know me, and barely have
the opportunity to bond to me.
The quickest way to form a relationship with a dog is to provide him with
food. This teaches a dog that you are good. He can trust you, rely on you
for further resources, and he now understands that more good things will
come from you. This quickly persuades him to listen to you, and motivates
him to want to do the things that you want him to do.
The issue with praise is that all dogs don't care about you all of the time.
There's someone across the room that has played with, petted, rubbed, and
fed them before, and that person is the light of that dog's life. Or there's
females in heat 2 rows over who are far more interesting than you will ever
be with your silly high-pitched voice and "good-boys!" There's a hundred
dogs before who peed in this 1 spot, and that smell is the center of the
universe. There's dogs over there who look like they'd be much more fun to
play with than to listen to whatever it is you think you can get a dog to
do. Or, there's food on the ground that is more stimulating and
attention-grabbing than you are. Or, a dog has no idea what to do and just
stands there. He doesn't know, doesn't understand what you're saying because
he knows no commands, and food can lure him into the right spot without
force.
For all these situations, food is a primary reinforcer. Because a dog's
strongest sense is his sense of smell. You can get a dog's attention with
food. You can make a dog follow you with food. With food, you can establish
yourself as the only person or one of the people a dog should trust.
I'll tell you, I work with dogs who don't know me, who don't trust these new
people with these new voices and new faces, and dogs who don't understand
what they are expected to do. So yes, I use food to motivate them--to make
them want what I want. If a dog won't get into her cage, I toss a few treats
in there, rather than begging, pleading, pushing, pulling, prodding, forcing
and fighting her to just get in the God-blessed cage! It's much less
stressful for both caretaker and dog to just throw food into the cage, and
voila! the dog climbs in like magic.
Now, just because treats are a primary reinforcer, doesn't mean they are the
first reinforcer you resort to. It just means it is the most rewarding
reinforcer.
For instance, I will step into or crawl into a dog's cage to lure them in
before I resort to treats. But if a dog shows that they couldn't give a crap
about being with me in the cage, or being in the cage just because I'm
attempting to make it sound awesome, then yes, I whip out the treats. It's
quick, convenient, efficient, stress-free, and force-free.

Many of the schools treat train because it speeds up training. A dog
understands a behavior is good when there's food involved. It solidifies
understanding quickly. Voices can be confusing with their various tones,
pitches, rates of speech, and inflections. But like the clicker, food is
consistent. It almost always means something good.
The dog has done, or is doing something good, and so he does it again and
again to keep getting the food.
But like basic commands, food is a basic reinforcer. You can build upon it
with more reinforcers, and eventually remove that food reinforcer with a
rewarding substitute. But that takes time.
This is not something that applies to, works for, or is necessary for all
dogs. But it is guaranteed to work with 8.5 out of 10.

Treat training is not the reason for scavenging. As someone said, dogs are
naturally scavengers. They are opportunistic carnivore scavengers, so this
is an instinctual behavior in many dogs. Notice that puppies start out
exploring with their mouths, picking things up, retrieving things
unnecessarily, and so on. This is not taught, it is engrained within them,
primarily for survival, though it is no longer needed.
Heck, even human infants do this! And like any behavior, sometimes you can
train out the instincts, and sometimes you can't. You can mitigate it, but
you might not be able to train out the behavior altogether.
Plenty of dogs have been treat trained, and don't have food distractions. My
golden was treat trained, and he is not a scavenger.
He is trained to eat on cue, regardless of whether it's on my hand, in a
bowl, or on the floor/ground. He is trained to leave something alone, when I
say "leave it," even if he's about to put his tongue to a delicious beef
heart. And if I don't say "eat" or "take it," he's not eating; it is as
simple as that.
I've trained plenty of dogs using treats, and they were perfectly able to
ignore things on the ground, even after being taught the "leave it"
or "ignore" cues using treats.

I don't see the link between dog distractions and the use of food rewards
encouraging or propagating this behavior issue. I have been able to lessen
the Golden Guy's dog distraction by using a head collar, redirection,
praise, and practice. But this has grown easier as our relationship
solidified, and I gained a better understanding of force-free training, and
calming techniques for myself and my dog.

A big problem is that the kennel reverses many house manners. I take care of
dogs who are well-behaved in their homes, but are balls of troublesome
energy in the kennel. My mentor raised a pup to be a guide dog. After 3
weeks her dog was pulled from the program. She says that in those 3 weeks,
her dog was changed, and her manners haven't been the same since.

I think a problem could be that we are using retriever breeds, but not
capitalizing on their retrieving abilities. In earlier days of guide dog
training, dogs were trained to find and retrieve dropped objects, and even
carry them for the handler. I'm not aware of a program that trains or even
encourages this behavior any longer. I'm only saying this is a possible
cause or correlative link, not that it is the reason for scavenging. It's
just a theory.

Furthermore, labradors seem to be the primary culprits for scavenging, and
in the earliest days of guide dogs, German shepherds and collies were used.
I'm not saying other guiding breeds don't scavenge. And perhaps it is a
faulty claim, considering most of the guide dog population is comprised of
labs, and so by default, most of the scavenging guide dogs will be
labradors. However, I've noticed that compared to other breeds used for
guiding, they are more food-motivated, and more inclined to have their noses
glued to the floor and be distracted by food and other objects on the
ground. I'm not saying they're bad guides by any stretch, just pointing out
some simple, and perhaps harsh truths here.
Of course, labradors can easily be motivated by praise. They are easily
excitable creatures. However, it seems that labradors have serious food
obsessions in my experience.
--
Raven
Founder of 1AM Editing & Research
www.1am-editing.com

You are valuable because of your potential, not because of what you have or
what you do.

Naturally-reared guide dogs
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/nrguidedogs

On 7/1/15, Kaye Kipp via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Most of the schools do treat train now.  I can see where it could lead 
> to scavenging.
>
> Kaye
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Vivianna 
> via nagdu
> Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 7:40 AM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Cc: Vivianna
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?
>
> Yes, GDF does treat train.
>
> Vivianna
>
>> On Jul 1, 2015, at 9:26 AM, Applebutter Hill via nagdu 
>> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Vivianna,
>> I didn't realize that the schools were doing this. This is a major 
>> step down IMO. I can understand the use of treats by a handler if the 
>> dog develops some sort of aversion based on a bad experience; we 
>> recently talked about dogs slipping when they jumped into SUV's and 
>> not wanting to go to a certain location like work. Those incidents 
>> are far different  than training a dog from scratch using treats. It 
>> goes against everything I was ever taught in the past with my four
guides.
>> I'd like to know if GDF is doing this. And, I can't imagine that this
> practice wouldn't lead to scavenging.
>> Donna & Hunter
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Vivianna 
>> via nagdu
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 1:51 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
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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/applebutterhill%40
>> g
>> mail.c
>> om
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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/irishana%40gmail.c
>> o
>> m
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/kkipp123%40gmail.co
> m
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/ravend729%40gmail.c
> om
>

_______________________________________________
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/herclouise%40shaw.ca