[nagdu] Question about using Treats

[Tami Jarvis]

Danielle,

Others have given really great explanations about using and reducing 
treats. Since your dog isn't distracted or excited by them, a slow 
transition or even a partial transition should be fine. And sometimes in 
training, you do need to back up a step or maybe several, then bring the 
dog back before moving forward.

Some behaviors may need more constant reward for a longer time, too. 
Something may be harder for her or not as much fun, so you need to pay 
more for those behaviors. I've been using this concept, which is fairly 
new to me, with my pup and some with my mature dogs and find it very 
useful. So for my pup sit is easy, so I phased constant treating for 
that step of our obedience routine really quickly. For a lot of other 
things, I treat like mad, especially for settling him down on his mat in 
the evening or under my desk when he's more restless. He's not quite to 
7 months, so I'm not in a hurry. I've noticed with my poodles that they 
will kind of let me know when they don't need so much constant food 
reward, so that makes it easier for me. I still offer Mitzi treats now 
and then for this or that, and she will think about whether to grace me 
by accepting them. For some things on our training walks, Loki is 
already starting to ignore treats in favor of just moving along, so I've 
stopped worrying too much about how and when to phase him into Las Vegas 
style food rewards.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out, whatever process you decide 
to use.

Tami

On 11/11/2014 04:33 AM, Danielle Burton via nagdu wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,, for those of you who use treats with your dogs or has used trts and transitioned them out is it easy to back off too quickly? I believe I may have done this and I don't seem to be getting the responses I want from my pup. I know some of you have  a strong disagreement to treats and that's fine but we were trainged with jreats at the school and I had been trying to phase them out. and just to clarify I take her treats out of her morning kibble so she isn't getting extra food from the treats.  But I was wondering if maybe she is the dog that may need them. OR if I backed off too quickly and she  can't do that. We honly been a team since June so the bonding is still taking place. I know some dogs get overly excted about treats and therefore treats aren't effective for those dogs but she isn't overly excited but will wait till I give it to her  and she won't try to reach in friendnt of me to get at them but she does severm to do beter with the treats. Any advice would appr
eciate. I am going to try to use the treats like I did in the beginning for a week or and then try to back off again. But has anyone ever had this problem?
> Danielle and Willa
>
>
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