Treat Training

[RebeccaSheedlo]

Hello - new member here and I'm not familiar with training dogs.  I have a 10 month old golden retriever that needs some training.  She knows her "sit" command and I just started working on "down" with using a treat lure.  She is doing great with the lure, but won't go to down without a treat.  Suggestions?  I have started to say "down" when using the treat hoping she would realize that's what she needs to do.  Also, just out of my own curiosity, won't dogs stop responding to the command after you stop using treats?  Thanks!

[Adrienne]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

To get her to lie down without the treat, you can try several of these options and see what works best:

-You can try to handle some smelly treats and pretend as if you are holding the treat, but you'll just be doing the hand motion empty handed. Once your dog lies down, you praise and reward with a treat you have hidden in your other hand or in your pocket.

-You can gradually shrink the size of the treat making it protruded less and less from your hand so that at some point, you can fade it out completely. 

-You can do several reps quickly in a row with the food showing, and then in the midst of all this, do one rep without the treat visible (feed it from your other hand). Then, the percentage of treat-less reps should be increased gradually.

You can find this covered in this section:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/fading-food-lures/

Treats (and any other forms of rewards) should never be stopped completely otherwise we risk extinguishing the behavior. Just like us, who work to get a pay check, they'll need some type of reinforcement to keep motivated and keep going. The good news is that, once a behavior has been taught well, and the dog performs it fluently, we can start moving from a continuous schedule to a variable one. This means, from giving a treat for every single correct sit or down, we can start giving a treat for every 3 sits or 3 downs and then for every two, then for every 4, etc. We should always praise though when we don't give treats so they know that have done right. 

On top of giving treats occasionally, we can then also introduce life rewards (like asking a dog to sit before allowing him to do or providing things he finds naturally reinforcing, for example, asking a dog to sit before being let out https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/college/open-sesame/, asking a dog to sit before we toss a ball, asking a dog to sit before we pet him, asking a dog to sit before we attach the leash to the collar etc.

More on this here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/fading-continuous-rewards/

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dog-listens-treats/

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions,

Happy Training!

Adrienne