Smart Dog - Food Motivated

[KRISTA BERGSON]

I have a German Shepard/Great Dane Mix. She is very smart.  I have been trying to teach her touch but she doesn't focus on my hand. She is focused on where the treats are. She will only touch my hand if I have used that hand to give her treats... She essentially is just smelling it.

What can I do to shift the focus from where the treats are to what we are doing?

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forums!

By touch, I think you are referring to targeting? https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/preschool/targeting/

If so, here are some things to try if your dog is so focused on the treats. 

-Hide the treats. Keep them in your treat bag or pocket. If you are already doing that, and she's still hyper focused on those, prior to training, place some treats on a tall shelf when you dog is not around and then strategically start training right next to that shelf. Then, present your hand. When she sniffs/makes contact with your hand, click or use your verbal marker "yes," and grab the treat from the shelf and reward.

Don't worry about the extra second spent grabbing the treat from the shelf- if your dog is familiar with marker training,  the click or verbal marker acts like "a bridge" filling the gap between performing the wanted behavior, and the delivery of reinforcement. The click/verbal marker tells her that she got it right, and that a treat will soon follow. 

*Some dogs may be more tempted to hand target if you make your hand more visually salient by keeping your hand behind your back and presenting it. 

-If she is smelling your hand that is a good start! I actually encourage sniffing by sometimes purposely rubbing some treats in my hands with dogs who are little shy or tentative in hand targeting. Keep on marking and rewarding that sniffing, however, as you progress, start rubbing less and less scent into your hands so that it starts fading. With time, she should understand that the goal is making contact with her nose to your hand regardless of whether your hand smells like treats. 

If she keeps on just sniffing, start gradually raising criteria. In other words, start getting a bit picky and reinforce the most "bold" forms of sniffing. For example, mark and reward the sniffs where her nose is closer to your hand, ignore the more distant sniffs. Then at some point, mark and reward only the sniffs where her nose makes contact with your hand. 

-For  more challenging cases, like dogs who are hand shy, I sometimes have to keep a little treat in between my fingers when my open hand is presented. When the dog's nose makes contact with my hand, I click/say yes and let the treat fall to the ground. Then the treat is faded (made smaller and smaller up to the point where the dog learns that she must nose touch my hand even if no treat is there in order to be clicker/verbally marked and given a treat from my pocket/treat bag. 

Another extra little tip for dogs who become too focused on treat bags and treats in our pockets: start carrying these around even when you are not training. They may initially follow us around, try to get to them when we aren't looking, but we will make it clear that these are delivered only when we decide that we are training. Be super attentive and extra careful never to allow accidental "stealing" of treats.  Eventually, these dogs will give up and get used us to our treat bags and pockets filled with treats. 

I hope this helps! Keep us posted on how things go. 

Happy Training!

Best,

Adrienne 

[MARK MCGEE]

Do you keep clicking/marking after you have no food? I thought clicker meant food will follow. So isn’t it confusing if you click without food?

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi Mark, Welcome to the forums!

Yes, you are correct. A click is always followed by a treat/food.