Obedience Class Eastern Suburbs – How to Fade Away Treats?

Obedience Class Eastern Suburbs – How to Fade Away Treats?

The thickest argument against using positive training and food rewards when training a dog is that it’s same as bribery. And yes, it would be if an owner always lured with treats. I used to train competition level obedience and did trials with my first two dogs for 6 years, and I didn’t reward my dogs all the time or for everything they did and nor did I ever have treats with me when out and about with them and they obeyed me perfectly. Especially in trials, you aren’t allowed to do use treats or rewards. So how do we get dogs to listen to us even when using treats? We have to fade them out of course! This is what we learn in my obedience class in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in Queens Park.

We start with a lot of treats – until there’s none!

Dogs are animals, they only ever do what’s beneficial for them. Dominance trainers use fear, threat, pain, discomfort and confinement to get dogs to obey. It works because a dog then tries to avoid something they don’t want. Positive trainers motivate dogs to do what they want with rewards, getting dogs to obey because they want to.

It’s all about creating the right habits and then reducing the rewards. First, a dog might get a reward every time, then every second, then randomly, eventually only for the most difficult situations or the best performance. And finally none – all tho even then you should still use a reward occasionally, you wouldn’t work for free either, right? This way you’ll create a dog who understands that the treats aren’t the master, you are. And of course, you should use other rewards too such as freedom (being off-leash isn’t a privilege, it should be earned), attention, cuddles, meals, playtime etc. This makes it even more clear that getting good things in life means that certain behaviours are expected. Dogs learn what of their behaviours get them what they want and in the process, those behaviours will increase. It’s that simple!