I’ve always given Lilly about 300 x more treats than anyone else I know. I can easily go through a quart-size ziplock of of training food in an hour. It’s one reason she often eats small meals. So, now that we’re working entirely under the behavior modification model that says “food changes how a dog feels emotionally about a situation,” I’m going through even more food. Which makes me wish for a Willy Wonka creation — something like the bottomless bait bag.
Over the years, I’ve been accused of many things relating to my use of food in Lilly’s training. I’ve been told I’m “rewarding” her fear and making it worse. I’ve been told I’m “rewarding” her for absolutely nothing. I’ve even been told I’m “cheating” by rewarding Lilly’s tricks with food. Seriously. A fellow participant at a humane society walk-a-thon, whose son was very impressed by Lilly’s tricks along the route, told her young son “Yes … but she’s feeding her.” As if I was the biggest fraud on the planet. Have a nice day. :O)
Since Lilly is essentially on house-arrest during our retraining and total re-contextualization process (I made that up), we have to go for our neighborhood walks when we’re less likely to run into strange people or dogs. Last Saturday, I tried to do just that by getting out earlier than usual. Apparently on weekends, that’s NOT possible.
I loaded up my bait bag and off we went. Everything went great until we had to pass by some always-barking-at-us dogs on the corner. We usually get by them just fine by crossing the street to add lateral distance.
BUT, this day when we passed them the second time on our way home, the grumpy old guy across the street was out. There was a big rumbling truck and trailer in the way. Another guy was using earthmoving equipment in that driveway, so the dogs we usually avoid were barking at the men (and us). Toss in the fact that grumpy old guy also has 2 pretty vicious spaniels that often run around off leash, and I knew we were headed into crapola, but it’s the ONLY way home.
We probably could have made it through, if I’d had enough food, but my coffer was running low, and JUST AS WE APPROACHED, grumpy old guy decided to have a cursing fit at the dogs barking at him.
So, Lilly and I are trying to squeeze between screaming man, loud equipment, and two snarling dogs. It was a no-win situation, so we ran. Better to get through quickly with no food, than the try and work the program in the midst of what likely seemed to Lilly like a war-zone.
Check. Weekend walks are out.
Thanks for visiting. I look forward to your input.
Oh I always love the way people act like food is somehow cheating. I took my dog-aggressive spazdog pit bull bitch to a “pittie party” last fall. She has some Impulse Control Problems, so I took a bait bag full of wonderous yummies so we could work on being calm and focusing on me despite the excitement. I had several people make comments about how my dog had me trained to give her food. *eyeroll*
Yes. Rewarding your dog is cheating. Counter-conditioning must be double cheating. That’s giving your dog food for free! Oh Em Gee!
I got here from your comment on Dolittler and have very much enjoyed poking around. I’ll definitely be back.