 |
| Your job is to create short successes, adding time, distance and distraction gradually and separately. |
|
USING FOOD FOR MAXIMUM BENEFIT
Food, treats, or “lures” all mean basically the same thing: Tiny (pea-sized) pieces of whatever your puppy will pay attention to in a given environment.
You may have great success with plain dry dog food in every situation. However, if your puppy needs a little more motivation when you start working in more distracting places, mix in tiny pieces of treats at a ratio of about 4:1 food:treats. I recommend that you make this mix in large batches and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge.
Effective training treats have a few things in common:
· They’re soft
· They’re stinky (in a good dog way, of course)
· They’re easily cut, broken or crumbled into tiny pieces
· They’re different from week to week (or day to day if necessary). Variety is the spice of life for dogs too.
The most effective kind of treats to mix into your dog’s food/treat batches are usually cold cuts or hot dogs (yes, human food!), chicken, turkey, tuna, or most softer dog treats like fake bacon, fake meat, fake jerky, or any soft dog treat. Freeze-dried liver also works well because it’s easy to cut with scissors into dry dog food, it gets powdery and coats each piece of kibble (so your dog thinks it’s all liver), and it’s dry (not wet & mushy) in your hand or pocket. You can buy freeze-dried liver at your local pet store.
Daily Food and Treat Calculator
Your puppy need not get fat learning via positive reinforcement. Use the following formula to calculate how much food to use for what purpose:
Amount puppy ingests daily / 2 = X
X = Total amount to mix with tiny treats and keep in your pocket for reinforcement
X = Total amount to feed to your puppy as meals daily
For example, if your puppy usually eats 3 cups of food each day:
3 cups daily / 2 = 1.5 cups
1.5 cups = Total amount to mix with tiny treats and keep in your pocket for reinforcement
1.5 cups = Total amount to feed to your puppy as meals daily
Note: This formula assumes that your puppy currently ingests a few treats during the day already. These treats will now get mixed in with his daily reinforcement batch, so don’t add even more treats to this daily regimen.
Additional Note: If you are currently house training your puppy, it’ll help to train around meal times so that you can still predict his bowel movements.
See our Lure Phase-Out article for further information on using food in dog training.
|
|