When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [38]
Piggy Pointer
People often feel annoyed or offended when their dog trembles with willingness to do their bidding in the presence of food, and then completely loses interest in the absence of food. The incorrect conclusion that people draw is that they should not use food to train, because then the dog only wants to work for food. On the contrary, food is a great motivator for all the reasons I have listed above. However, once your dog has learned how to perform behaviors, you need to move past food on to other reinforcers and vary the reinforcers so that the dog is in a constant, excited, state of happy anticipation. It is the incorrect application of the food motivator that is the problem, not the food itself.
The other problem with using only food is that you need to vary your reinforcement types to keep your dog excited and engaged in the task at hand. You may notice that, after a while, your dog starts not responding to your cues, or responds in a slow, lackluster manner. That is because he knows exactly what he is going to get in exchange for the behavior, so why rush? Your dog may like some kind of reinforcers more than others, but varying the reinforcement types will keep your dog on the hook much better than if you just used the dog’s hottest reinforcer alone. This is the science behind the casino industry. Imagine you are playing a slot machine. You put in a nickel, and you get back two nickels, every time. You would probably sit there for a long time, since you are winning, but it’s not terribly exciting. After a while, it will even begin to seem like drudgery, as if you are at work. Basically, you are getting paid by the hour to pull a lever again and again, and that is boring! Now imagine that you put in a nickel, and get nothing, but there is a possibility, however remote, that you might get $1,000,000. On some pulls of the lever you get two nickels, sometimes none, sometimes 100, but there is always that jackpot possibility out there. The fact that you are actually losing money over time is not relevant—every pull of that lever makes your heart race a little because you are excited by the possibilities and you are having fun.
That is where you need to be with your dog. Your dog pulls the slot handle by doing a behavior. Lemon, lemon, apple—he gets a cheese ball. Apple, apple, apple—he gets to chase a Frisbee. Lemon, lime, pineapple—he gets two cheese balls. Pineapple, Pineapple, Pineapple—HOLY COW! He gets to shred a stuffed toy into tiny pieces!!!! YAY!
Based on the first part of this chapter, you may be wondering if using food is a good idea, at all. Let me assure you, food is an irreplaceable tool and I am in no way suggesting that you should not use food. I just want you to understand when and why you need other kinds of reinforcers, too. Food is generally the very best reinforcer for initially teaching behaviors and one should not be in a hurry to get away from using it. Food has a particularly salient effect on the dog and the trainer can get the most mileage out of it as a reinforcer because of the precision with which it can be doled out and positioned. Furthermore, food actually puts a dog’s brain in a good place for learning. Food stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system—generally a calming sensation. When we use food in training, we are actually helping to keep our dogs’ minds in the calm, thinking part of the brain, instead of the wild, reflexive part of the brain. This helps your dog to learn new and complicated tasks more easily. However, for all the reasons listed above, you will need other kinds of reinforcers for your dog to progress in