Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share What Happens When Rewards Dont Work? Episode 147
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
What Happens When Rewards Dont Work? Episode 147
What happens when rewards don't work? What do you do when your dog is not food motivated and willing to work with you every day? You are supposed to be teaching and training them and they want nothing to do with you.
In today's episode, I break down the 3 reasons your dog isn't responding to reward-based training and what you need to do about it today!!
Download the Training Planner Template with the link below
https://www.matadork9.com/planner
Join Matador University for free - https://www.matadork9.com/14daytrial
Train with my - https://www.matadork9.com/coaching
Want me to answer your dog training questions? Leave a review with your question, and I will ask in the next episode!
00:00:19:02 - 00:00:43:27
Michael J. Accetta
I've got a great show for you today. Oh, boy, oh, boy. If you guys stick around until the end of this, you are going to have so much in your tool belt now. We're going over so much today. The question that started this was what happens when rewards don't work? What happens when my dog is smart enough to know when I have a treat or when I don't have a treat?
00:00:45:04 - 00:01:12:11
Michael J. Accetta
Right. My dog is a master of deception. They're not food motivated. How am I supposed to reward them if I can't give them food, they don't care. They're wicked smart and are way too smart for their own good. They know when something's available and when it isn't right. We say the dog collar savvy or training savvy. Essentially, it's a layman's term for, well, my dog understands that there's a criterion involved in training.
00:01:12:11 - 00:01:26:16
Michael J. Accetta
And if the criteria aren't there, then I don't need to perform. I don't need to listen I don't need to respond when you tell me to come to you. I don't need to sit when you ask me to sit. I can do whatever I want because you don't have anything on me. You don't have a way to keep me accountable.
00:01:26:20 - 00:01:49:25
Michael J. Accetta
And you don't have a way to reward me. This happens constantly. It's a lot of what my job entails when my dog listens inside, but they don't listen outside. My dog listens when no one's around. But the second there's a person involved, my dog loses their mind. If you are dealing with this, you need to stay tuned for the entire episode because I'm going over so much today on why this happens and how we can fix it.
00:01:51:04 - 00:02:14:09
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, now there are only three reasons as to why rewards don't work There are only three. So I want you to find out while you're listening to this, whether you're driving or whether you're doing something else. Maybe you're sitting down and taking notes. I want you to just think, which one do I fall into? There are only three. The first one is you do not have the preferred reward.
00:02:15:08 - 00:02:35:28
Michael J. Accetta
This is one of the easiest ways to solve your problems. Now, the next two or a little more complicated. But if you can just rule this one out, at least you know that you didn't waste a lot of time. The number of dogs that I've worked with and the owners that I've helped change their lives was as simple as, let's just find out what your dog likes.
00:02:37:17 - 00:02:56:16
Michael J. Accetta
Like, if you've never done that, you're wasting time in training. If you've never spent the time to figure out what your dog actually likes, then you are adding time to training as opposed to succeeding in training that you're just it's making it harder for you to get the same results as if you were to just have the treats that your dog preferred.
00:02:56:29 - 00:03:15:20
Michael J. Accetta
Let me give you an example. My dogs usually use kibble for their reward every morning and night. When we have breakfast and dinner, I train my dogs with kibble. However, I know that if we need to do something quickly, I need to teach a behavior very fast, and I want my dog to be motivated to learn and engaged.
00:03:16:02 - 00:03:42:23
Michael J. Accetta
I can use cheese. I could use hot dogs, and they are on it. Okay. They are light lit up there, ready to go because of the fact that I have something that they actually prefer. Yes, they love their kibble. They eat their kibble every day, though. But if I have something you know, higher up in their hierarchy of rewards, I can get that much more motivation, that much more excitement, that much more involvement.
00:03:43:29 - 00:04:00:06
Michael J. Accetta
And then as long as I don't mess up the next to which we're going to talk for a second, so long as I don't mess up, the next to my dog will not become dependent on that preferred reinforcement. What do I mean by that? I mean, my dog won't be looking for the reward and going, Oh, well, you don't have the cheese.
00:04:00:06 - 00:04:21:07
Michael J. Accetta
I'm not going to listen. And I've had that happen to one. Husky comes to mind right now when every single session they had to change treats. They ended up getting a subscription box and they would just buy treats from the subscription box and then figure out what the dog liked. But the dog always changed it because it wanted to know what else you got, what else you got?
00:04:21:24 - 00:04:47:01
Michael J. Accetta
Oh, you got, you got jerky. You got a hot dog. She got cheese, you got cheddar cheese, you got mozzarella cheese. This dog became picky because the owners kept changing it. They didn't set forth a goal of finding the preferred reinforcement and using it. Instead, they just kept guessing to the dog, said Well, if I don't take the treat, maybe they'll pull something else out and they'll try to get me to do it.
00:04:47:15 - 00:05:05:28
Michael J. Accetta
And then, of course, when they did pull something else out, the dog went, Oh, cool, all I got to do is wait. And then you'll find something better to give me. I don't want that to happen with you and your dog, because if that happens now, you're just getting into a competition well, who can wait longer? Can your dog wait longer to get something they really want?
00:05:06:12 - 00:05:35:10
Michael J. Accetta
Or do you have to wait for your dog to then go, Okay, this is all I'm getting? It's no good. Do a preference test first. Figure out what they prefer. What is their favorite treat? And then market and go, Okay. Cheese is the ultimate goal. Cheese is the ultimate goal. If I need to teach anything quickly if I need to teach serious behaviors like recall or say I'm going to use cheese I want to take a moment and thank all of our loyal followers.
00:05:35:21 - 00:06:02:13
Michael J. Accetta
This podcast would not be possible without you. Leave, a review and let us know what you like and want to learn on the next episode of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast. Now back to the show But that's only the first reason that a reward might not work. You just don't have the right reward. But if you rule that out now, we can move on to the second and third reasons why your dog might not respond as effectively to reward-based training.
00:06:04:01 - 00:06:29:00
Michael J. Accetta
The second reason is sloppy mechanics, sloppy mechanics. This kind of goes back to what I was mentioning earlier about getting dependent on treats If your dog knows that you have something to reward them with and you only ever have something to reward them with when you're doing training they will learn, Oh, he's got treats or she's got treats.
00:06:29:02 - 00:06:58:28
Michael J. Accetta
Let me listen. She doesn't have treats. He doesn't have treats. I'm not going to listen. That is sloppy mechanics. That essentially means your dog should think. You just exude treats all the time. You always have the opportunity to make rewards come out of thin air. Right. If you can just make them appear, then you can always get your dog to do something and you can always get them to listen because there is no opportunity in life where there isn't a reward.
00:07:00:22 - 00:07:21:07
Michael J. Accetta
Think about having to listen when you go to an event somebody important gets on stage. Everybody quiets down. Right. If there's nobody on stage, then everybody does what they want. Right. You're not quite waiting for someone to go on stage. Someone goes on stage. They say, Attention, everyone. And then everyone quiets down. They start to pay attention. That's what happens with your dog.
00:07:21:07 - 00:07:42:03
Michael J. Accetta
They see you and they go, Oh, he's on stage. He's ready to perform. This might be with a training vest. This might be with a training pouch. But when you take all of those things off, your dog goes, Oh, I don't have to listen. We're not training anymore. This is very common. If you use collars or harnesses on your dog, they become a collar or harness savvy equipment savvy.
00:07:42:21 - 00:08:05:21
Michael J. Accetta
They know that that means we're going to work now. We're going to go do something very, very common in police dog work. And they actually use this to their advantage. They want the dogs to listen exceptionally well during police work and relax when they're not doing police work. So that works. But if you're just having your dog go out normally, then you want them to listen all the time, no matter what.
00:08:06:19 - 00:08:32:23
Michael J. Accetta
It should not be contingent upon wearing a harness or a collar or anything else. Now, the last reason, the last possible reason as to why the rewards aren't working is timing. Your timing is off. Something is getting in between what your dog did and what should have rewarded the behavior that could go for literally anything. But I'll give you a couple of examples here.
00:08:33:11 - 00:08:55:27
Michael J. Accetta
Let's say I want to reward my dog for recalling me and on the way to recalling me they might go off to the side, divert to something else, and then finally come back to me and I reward that. In that case, I did not reward a perfect recall. I ended up rewarding a diversion and then coming back.
00:08:56:19 - 00:09:18:20
Michael J. Accetta
Anything you reward will increase the likelihood of it happening. That's, you know, the definition of reinforcement increases the likelihood of it happening, which means that behavior is now going to happen again. My dog is going to divert and if they divert more and more and more, eventually they're going to divert so much off the central line of recalling to me that they're going to be five blocks away.
00:09:19:21 - 00:09:38:10
Michael J. Accetta
And, you know, why is my dog not recalling? Well, you rewarded them just for the wrong thing. The timing was off there. The same thing goes for leaving the park. Let's say you have your dog running around everything's great. And as they're running to you, instead of marking and rewarding them for running to you, they get all the way to you.
00:09:38:10 - 00:09:55:08
Michael J. Accetta
And then they start to move away from you and you use the clicker to get their attention again. I've seen this happen over and over again. Right. The dog gets to you. They realize we're leaving. Oh, no, I don't want to leave. So they go to book it. And you remember to click at that moment, and then you've clicked your dog for running away.
00:09:56:06 - 00:10:13:16
Michael J. Accetta
And now they think, Oh, I got rewarded. I was supposed to run away. Especially if you did a good job of conditioning the clicker or the marker signal. If you say yes, you've done a good job of conditioning that to the point where they don't need the secondary reward, rather the first reward that they don't need the primary reward.
00:10:13:16 - 00:10:39:16
Michael J. Accetta
The treat, right? They just need the secondary reward, which is the clicker That's a timing issue. You have a timing issue. Your dog thinks one thing because you've accidentally marked and rewarded the wrong thing. So record your sessions, actually pull out your phone, and record what you're doing with your dog. And then review it later. Is my timing right?
00:10:39:16 - 00:10:59:26
Michael J. Accetta
You can see frame by frame, frame by frame. My dog is moving away from me as I click. Wow, that's a problem. I'm late my dog is moving towards me as I click. That's perfect. My dog is not doing anything. As I click. Well, they're always doing something, but if they're stationary, let's say they're sitting. And you wanted them to move toward you, right?
00:10:59:28 - 00:11:18:06
Michael J. Accetta
They ran all the way to you. They're sitting in front of you and then you click. You're not rewarding the recall anymore. You're rewarding them for stopping and sitting, which very often happens when we have dogs run towards us and they stop a few feet away. We reward them because we go, Oh, well, I want them to encourage me to keep coming to me.
00:11:18:22 - 00:11:41:18
Michael J. Accetta
But that's the wrong timing. We have to encourage them while they're running towards us to continue running through all the way to us. Okay. So those are three reasons. The only three reasons. Positive reinforcement not working. Number one, you do not have the preferred reinforcement you do not have there their absolute magnet. The thing that they are so drawn to, they could ignore everything else in the world.
00:11:41:18 - 00:12:02:03
Michael J. Accetta
Find out what that is and training will be ten times easier to you just have sloppy mechanics. Either you intentionally have sloppy mechanics or you don't know what the right mechanics are supposed to be. And that's totally fine if you don't know what the mechanics are then clearly you're not doing it out of malicious intent. But if you do know what the mechanics are, you're just lazy, which have seen a lot in trainers.
00:12:02:12 - 00:12:24:05
Michael J. Accetta
They just get lazy. They get, you know, oh, I could still get a result by doing it with less effort. That's not good. You got to do 100% all the time in order to get 100% success. 100% reliability. And then the last one is timing. Is your timing off? Is your timing off? Are you actually rewarding the right thing?
00:12:24:05 - 00:12:48:15
Michael J. Accetta
Now, here are the three solutions. I told you was going to be good if you stayed for the podcast. Three solutions. Number one, get the behavior first offered reliably and then add the queue. If your dog's not listening, it might not be that they're distracted by the environment. It might not be that they're having an off day. It might not be that they just don't like you.
00:12:49:10 - 00:13:16:06
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe they just don't fully understand the association between the word and the behavior so if you spend time focusing on the behavior itself, don't ask them to do it. Have them love doing it so much that then you can reward them for it. They're offering up the behavior on their own. This happens a lot when you do shopping with your dog and with a lot of positive reinforcement your dog starts to offer these behaviors, and that's what we want.
00:13:16:06 - 00:13:41:29
Michael J. Accetta
They're engaged. They're motivated to get you to release treats to them. Remember what I said earlier about convincing your dog? You just exude treats all the time. That's how you do it. Get them to offer the behavior to you so that you can then reward them if they're offering the behavior all of the time they are convinced that you have rewards, then you can start to add in the word, whatever that word may be.
00:13:42:03 - 00:13:59:18
Michael J. Accetta
I tell my dog to sit spin, recall whatever it is you can then get them to do it after, you know, 100% that they are wanting to do the behavior, not forced to do the behavior. They want to do it so badly. And you're just saying, hey, this is the word that means go for it.
00:14:01:19 - 00:14:27:24
Michael J. Accetta
Right? You're essentially saying this word that I'm saying that's coming out of my mouth means if you do that behavior that you love to do already, I'm going to give you a reward Now, the second solution is to use what your dog already finds rewarding. I know. I said to use the preferred reinforcement and you absolutely should but if there's something in the environment that's really rewarding to your dog, it might be the preferred reinforcement in that environment.
00:14:28:15 - 00:14:56:10
Michael J. Accetta
My dog Tommy was like this. He loves people. He still loves people. He will take you to the ground if you let him. Is a Great Dane. Border Collie has all his energy, but he's goofy as hell. So when he used to run up to people and literally take their knees out, we had to work on it. Now, the preferred reinforcement would be playing Tug with a person he loves playing Tug but when there's somebody new around, the preferred reinforcement that worked had to change.
00:14:57:13 - 00:15:16:03
Michael J. Accetta
And in this case, right. Use what your dog already finds rewarding it, saying hi to that person so I can use that to my advantage. All I had to do is get a little bit of control at first and look, I go right back to it, get the behavior first offered, then add the Q So I wasn't going to tell my dog.
00:15:16:03 - 00:15:35:01
Michael J. Accetta
Sit, sit, stay. Right. I'm not commanding him to stay. I would just wait at a far enough distance from my dog was successful. He'd start to put his butt down because we had practice set a whole bunch. And then once his butt goes down, I send him to say hi to the individual, and boom runs down, and goes to say hi.
00:15:35:06 - 00:15:57:26
Michael J. Accetta
Great. I've just rewarded him with what he already found. Rewarding without having to say anything. I didn't have to add a Q verbally because the person became the Q. We're getting a little technical here and a little advanced but essentially don't spend time adding the word if your dog doesn't know the behavior first and then use what your dog already finds rewarding in the environment.
00:15:59:14 - 00:16:19:10
Michael J. Accetta
Oh, my dog really loves chewing on the garbage. Okay. Is there any way you could possibly control that to the point where you can actually send them to maybe put something in the garbage? And that's an advanced training technique, but. Right, you could do that if my dog loves the garbage. Okay. The first thing I'm going to do is get my dog to leave the garbage alone.
00:16:20:15 - 00:16:33:18
Michael J. Accetta
Then I'm actually going to teach my dog to put something in the garbage intentionally. For me, this is what I did with my son, not a dog, but my son. He's three years old and he just he was interested in the garbage pail. So I taught him how to go over, unlock it and throw out a piece of garbage.
00:16:34:04 - 00:16:49:21
Michael J. Accetta
Now he cleans up my living room all the time. We have a garbage truck like he loves cleaning up garbage. Maybe he'll be a garbage man when he grows up, but he loves that kind of cleaning mentality and keeping everything orderly. And maybe that's a little bit of our family dynamic and trying to keep everything clean all the time.
00:16:49:21 - 00:17:06:22
Michael J. Accetta
But right. I didn't say, Hey, clean up your room first. The first thing I did was show him. I demonstrated that when I pick stuff up and throw him out, he wants to do it. And then I said, Hey, thanks for cleaning up, buddy. That's awesome. I rewarded him and then I use what he already found rewarding.
00:17:06:22 - 00:17:31:27
Michael J. Accetta
He wants to clean up. He wants to be involved in the garbage pail. Okay, what can we do those things together? Boom. Perfect. And then the third solution is to set your dog up for success. Constantly, constantly set your dog up for success. A lot of people say reward-based training does not work, and they've had personal experience with it not working simply because they're putting their dog in a situation that their dog is not ready for.
00:17:33:01 - 00:18:02:22
Michael J. Accetta
If your dog is not ready to be around a thousand people at a packed stadium because they've never been in that situation before and you're trying to teach them something new, it is way too stressful. We have to remove them from that environment, set them up for success by eliminating distractions, using their preferred reinforcer, breaking down the behavior into manageable pieces that they can digest, and then rewarding them heavily so they can build their confidence in that behavior.
00:18:04:11 - 00:18:27:09
Michael J. Accetta
You cannot do that in a stressful environment. You personally imagine trying to learn something new. Imagine the first day of work. You might be excited, you might be nervous, you might be anxious. You try and do everything right trying to impress the boss, and you mess up the classic movie, classic life, right? You mess up your first day, you get the coffee wrong, or you spill something or you drop the papers or whatever's going on.
00:18:27:11 - 00:18:40:02
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe you had an amazing first day, but odds are at some point you were in a nervous situation. I want you to think about it for a second. You were in a nervous or stressful situation and you did not think as perfectly as you usually do.
00:18:42:26 - 00:19:09:03
Michael J. Accetta
Why would you intentionally put your dog in a situation where it's harder for them to learn and then punish them for not doing as well of a job? Set them up for success and reward them heavily so that you can build their confidence in what your expectation of them is Now, I want to give you something to make this ten times easier and to keep you organized so that you can teach your dog the behavior first.
00:19:09:17 - 00:19:37:19
Michael J. Accetta
So that you know what? Q You're going to add to the behavior what your dog is finding rewarding so you can actually kind of pair it together and then how set your dog up for success and get long-term success in training. I'm going to give you my training template, my actual planner that I use on every single client, and every single dog so that I stay organized and know what I've done, what I need to do, and where I'm going in my training so I can stay accountable and organized.
00:19:38:02 - 00:19:57:16
Michael J. Accetta
I'm going to put a link in the description, or you can just head over to https://www.matadork9.com/planner. I want to thank you guys for listening today. If you have questions comments or concerns about dog training, make sure you let me know either on social media or leave a review on this podcast.
00:19:57:26 - 00:19:59:18
Michael J. Accetta
Thank you guys for listening and I'll see you next time.
View all episodes
By Matador Canine Brilliance
5
88 ratings
What happens when rewards don't work? What do you do when your dog is not food motivated and willing to work with you every day? You are supposed to be teaching and training them and they want nothing to do with you.
In today's episode, I break down the 3 reasons your dog isn't responding to reward-based training and what you need to do about it today!!
Download the Training Planner Template with the link below
https://www.matadork9.com/planner
Join Matador University for free - https://www.matadork9.com/14daytrial
Train with my - https://www.matadork9.com/coaching
Want me to answer your dog training questions? Leave a review with your question, and I will ask in the next episode!
00:00:19:02 - 00:00:43:27
Michael J. Accetta
I've got a great show for you today. Oh, boy, oh, boy. If you guys stick around until the end of this, you are going to have so much in your tool belt now. We're going over so much today. The question that started this was what happens when rewards don't work? What happens when my dog is smart enough to know when I have a treat or when I don't have a treat?
00:00:45:04 - 00:01:12:11
Michael J. Accetta
Right. My dog is a master of deception. They're not food motivated. How am I supposed to reward them if I can't give them food, they don't care. They're wicked smart and are way too smart for their own good. They know when something's available and when it isn't right. We say the dog collar savvy or training savvy. Essentially, it's a layman's term for, well, my dog understands that there's a criterion involved in training.
00:01:12:11 - 00:01:26:16
Michael J. Accetta
And if the criteria aren't there, then I don't need to perform. I don't need to listen I don't need to respond when you tell me to come to you. I don't need to sit when you ask me to sit. I can do whatever I want because you don't have anything on me. You don't have a way to keep me accountable.
00:01:26:20 - 00:01:49:25
Michael J. Accetta
And you don't have a way to reward me. This happens constantly. It's a lot of what my job entails when my dog listens inside, but they don't listen outside. My dog listens when no one's around. But the second there's a person involved, my dog loses their mind. If you are dealing with this, you need to stay tuned for the entire episode because I'm going over so much today on why this happens and how we can fix it.
00:01:51:04 - 00:02:14:09
Michael J. Accetta
Okay, now there are only three reasons as to why rewards don't work There are only three. So I want you to find out while you're listening to this, whether you're driving or whether you're doing something else. Maybe you're sitting down and taking notes. I want you to just think, which one do I fall into? There are only three. The first one is you do not have the preferred reward.
00:02:15:08 - 00:02:35:28
Michael J. Accetta
This is one of the easiest ways to solve your problems. Now, the next two or a little more complicated. But if you can just rule this one out, at least you know that you didn't waste a lot of time. The number of dogs that I've worked with and the owners that I've helped change their lives was as simple as, let's just find out what your dog likes.
00:02:37:17 - 00:02:56:16
Michael J. Accetta
Like, if you've never done that, you're wasting time in training. If you've never spent the time to figure out what your dog actually likes, then you are adding time to training as opposed to succeeding in training that you're just it's making it harder for you to get the same results as if you were to just have the treats that your dog preferred.
00:02:56:29 - 00:03:15:20
Michael J. Accetta
Let me give you an example. My dogs usually use kibble for their reward every morning and night. When we have breakfast and dinner, I train my dogs with kibble. However, I know that if we need to do something quickly, I need to teach a behavior very fast, and I want my dog to be motivated to learn and engaged.
00:03:16:02 - 00:03:42:23
Michael J. Accetta
I can use cheese. I could use hot dogs, and they are on it. Okay. They are light lit up there, ready to go because of the fact that I have something that they actually prefer. Yes, they love their kibble. They eat their kibble every day, though. But if I have something you know, higher up in their hierarchy of rewards, I can get that much more motivation, that much more excitement, that much more involvement.
00:03:43:29 - 00:04:00:06
Michael J. Accetta
And then as long as I don't mess up the next to which we're going to talk for a second, so long as I don't mess up, the next to my dog will not become dependent on that preferred reinforcement. What do I mean by that? I mean, my dog won't be looking for the reward and going, Oh, well, you don't have the cheese.
00:04:00:06 - 00:04:21:07
Michael J. Accetta
I'm not going to listen. And I've had that happen to one. Husky comes to mind right now when every single session they had to change treats. They ended up getting a subscription box and they would just buy treats from the subscription box and then figure out what the dog liked. But the dog always changed it because it wanted to know what else you got, what else you got?
00:04:21:24 - 00:04:47:01
Michael J. Accetta
Oh, you got, you got jerky. You got a hot dog. She got cheese, you got cheddar cheese, you got mozzarella cheese. This dog became picky because the owners kept changing it. They didn't set forth a goal of finding the preferred reinforcement and using it. Instead, they just kept guessing to the dog, said Well, if I don't take the treat, maybe they'll pull something else out and they'll try to get me to do it.
00:04:47:15 - 00:05:05:28
Michael J. Accetta
And then, of course, when they did pull something else out, the dog went, Oh, cool, all I got to do is wait. And then you'll find something better to give me. I don't want that to happen with you and your dog, because if that happens now, you're just getting into a competition well, who can wait longer? Can your dog wait longer to get something they really want?
00:05:06:12 - 00:05:35:10
Michael J. Accetta
Or do you have to wait for your dog to then go, Okay, this is all I'm getting? It's no good. Do a preference test first. Figure out what they prefer. What is their favorite treat? And then market and go, Okay. Cheese is the ultimate goal. Cheese is the ultimate goal. If I need to teach anything quickly if I need to teach serious behaviors like recall or say I'm going to use cheese I want to take a moment and thank all of our loyal followers.
00:05:35:21 - 00:06:02:13
Michael J. Accetta
This podcast would not be possible without you. Leave, a review and let us know what you like and want to learn on the next episode of the Acknowledged Dogs podcast. Now back to the show But that's only the first reason that a reward might not work. You just don't have the right reward. But if you rule that out now, we can move on to the second and third reasons why your dog might not respond as effectively to reward-based training.
00:06:04:01 - 00:06:29:00
Michael J. Accetta
The second reason is sloppy mechanics, sloppy mechanics. This kind of goes back to what I was mentioning earlier about getting dependent on treats If your dog knows that you have something to reward them with and you only ever have something to reward them with when you're doing training they will learn, Oh, he's got treats or she's got treats.
00:06:29:02 - 00:06:58:28
Michael J. Accetta
Let me listen. She doesn't have treats. He doesn't have treats. I'm not going to listen. That is sloppy mechanics. That essentially means your dog should think. You just exude treats all the time. You always have the opportunity to make rewards come out of thin air. Right. If you can just make them appear, then you can always get your dog to do something and you can always get them to listen because there is no opportunity in life where there isn't a reward.
00:07:00:22 - 00:07:21:07
Michael J. Accetta
Think about having to listen when you go to an event somebody important gets on stage. Everybody quiets down. Right. If there's nobody on stage, then everybody does what they want. Right. You're not quite waiting for someone to go on stage. Someone goes on stage. They say, Attention, everyone. And then everyone quiets down. They start to pay attention. That's what happens with your dog.
00:07:21:07 - 00:07:42:03
Michael J. Accetta
They see you and they go, Oh, he's on stage. He's ready to perform. This might be with a training vest. This might be with a training pouch. But when you take all of those things off, your dog goes, Oh, I don't have to listen. We're not training anymore. This is very common. If you use collars or harnesses on your dog, they become a collar or harness savvy equipment savvy.
00:07:42:21 - 00:08:05:21
Michael J. Accetta
They know that that means we're going to work now. We're going to go do something very, very common in police dog work. And they actually use this to their advantage. They want the dogs to listen exceptionally well during police work and relax when they're not doing police work. So that works. But if you're just having your dog go out normally, then you want them to listen all the time, no matter what.
00:08:06:19 - 00:08:32:23
Michael J. Accetta
It should not be contingent upon wearing a harness or a collar or anything else. Now, the last reason, the last possible reason as to why the rewards aren't working is timing. Your timing is off. Something is getting in between what your dog did and what should have rewarded the behavior that could go for literally anything. But I'll give you a couple of examples here.
00:08:33:11 - 00:08:55:27
Michael J. Accetta
Let's say I want to reward my dog for recalling me and on the way to recalling me they might go off to the side, divert to something else, and then finally come back to me and I reward that. In that case, I did not reward a perfect recall. I ended up rewarding a diversion and then coming back.
00:08:56:19 - 00:09:18:20
Michael J. Accetta
Anything you reward will increase the likelihood of it happening. That's, you know, the definition of reinforcement increases the likelihood of it happening, which means that behavior is now going to happen again. My dog is going to divert and if they divert more and more and more, eventually they're going to divert so much off the central line of recalling to me that they're going to be five blocks away.
00:09:19:21 - 00:09:38:10
Michael J. Accetta
And, you know, why is my dog not recalling? Well, you rewarded them just for the wrong thing. The timing was off there. The same thing goes for leaving the park. Let's say you have your dog running around everything's great. And as they're running to you, instead of marking and rewarding them for running to you, they get all the way to you.
00:09:38:10 - 00:09:55:08
Michael J. Accetta
And then they start to move away from you and you use the clicker to get their attention again. I've seen this happen over and over again. Right. The dog gets to you. They realize we're leaving. Oh, no, I don't want to leave. So they go to book it. And you remember to click at that moment, and then you've clicked your dog for running away.
00:09:56:06 - 00:10:13:16
Michael J. Accetta
And now they think, Oh, I got rewarded. I was supposed to run away. Especially if you did a good job of conditioning the clicker or the marker signal. If you say yes, you've done a good job of conditioning that to the point where they don't need the secondary reward, rather the first reward that they don't need the primary reward.
00:10:13:16 - 00:10:39:16
Michael J. Accetta
The treat, right? They just need the secondary reward, which is the clicker That's a timing issue. You have a timing issue. Your dog thinks one thing because you've accidentally marked and rewarded the wrong thing. So record your sessions, actually pull out your phone, and record what you're doing with your dog. And then review it later. Is my timing right?
00:10:39:16 - 00:10:59:26
Michael J. Accetta
You can see frame by frame, frame by frame. My dog is moving away from me as I click. Wow, that's a problem. I'm late my dog is moving towards me as I click. That's perfect. My dog is not doing anything. As I click. Well, they're always doing something, but if they're stationary, let's say they're sitting. And you wanted them to move toward you, right?
00:10:59:28 - 00:11:18:06
Michael J. Accetta
They ran all the way to you. They're sitting in front of you and then you click. You're not rewarding the recall anymore. You're rewarding them for stopping and sitting, which very often happens when we have dogs run towards us and they stop a few feet away. We reward them because we go, Oh, well, I want them to encourage me to keep coming to me.
00:11:18:22 - 00:11:41:18
Michael J. Accetta
But that's the wrong timing. We have to encourage them while they're running towards us to continue running through all the way to us. Okay. So those are three reasons. The only three reasons. Positive reinforcement not working. Number one, you do not have the preferred reinforcement you do not have there their absolute magnet. The thing that they are so drawn to, they could ignore everything else in the world.
00:11:41:18 - 00:12:02:03
Michael J. Accetta
Find out what that is and training will be ten times easier to you just have sloppy mechanics. Either you intentionally have sloppy mechanics or you don't know what the right mechanics are supposed to be. And that's totally fine if you don't know what the mechanics are then clearly you're not doing it out of malicious intent. But if you do know what the mechanics are, you're just lazy, which have seen a lot in trainers.
00:12:02:12 - 00:12:24:05
Michael J. Accetta
They just get lazy. They get, you know, oh, I could still get a result by doing it with less effort. That's not good. You got to do 100% all the time in order to get 100% success. 100% reliability. And then the last one is timing. Is your timing off? Is your timing off? Are you actually rewarding the right thing?
00:12:24:05 - 00:12:48:15
Michael J. Accetta
Now, here are the three solutions. I told you was going to be good if you stayed for the podcast. Three solutions. Number one, get the behavior first offered reliably and then add the queue. If your dog's not listening, it might not be that they're distracted by the environment. It might not be that they're having an off day. It might not be that they just don't like you.
00:12:49:10 - 00:13:16:06
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe they just don't fully understand the association between the word and the behavior so if you spend time focusing on the behavior itself, don't ask them to do it. Have them love doing it so much that then you can reward them for it. They're offering up the behavior on their own. This happens a lot when you do shopping with your dog and with a lot of positive reinforcement your dog starts to offer these behaviors, and that's what we want.
00:13:16:06 - 00:13:41:29
Michael J. Accetta
They're engaged. They're motivated to get you to release treats to them. Remember what I said earlier about convincing your dog? You just exude treats all the time. That's how you do it. Get them to offer the behavior to you so that you can then reward them if they're offering the behavior all of the time they are convinced that you have rewards, then you can start to add in the word, whatever that word may be.
00:13:42:03 - 00:13:59:18
Michael J. Accetta
I tell my dog to sit spin, recall whatever it is you can then get them to do it after, you know, 100% that they are wanting to do the behavior, not forced to do the behavior. They want to do it so badly. And you're just saying, hey, this is the word that means go for it.
00:14:01:19 - 00:14:27:24
Michael J. Accetta
Right? You're essentially saying this word that I'm saying that's coming out of my mouth means if you do that behavior that you love to do already, I'm going to give you a reward Now, the second solution is to use what your dog already finds rewarding. I know. I said to use the preferred reinforcement and you absolutely should but if there's something in the environment that's really rewarding to your dog, it might be the preferred reinforcement in that environment.
00:14:28:15 - 00:14:56:10
Michael J. Accetta
My dog Tommy was like this. He loves people. He still loves people. He will take you to the ground if you let him. Is a Great Dane. Border Collie has all his energy, but he's goofy as hell. So when he used to run up to people and literally take their knees out, we had to work on it. Now, the preferred reinforcement would be playing Tug with a person he loves playing Tug but when there's somebody new around, the preferred reinforcement that worked had to change.
00:14:57:13 - 00:15:16:03
Michael J. Accetta
And in this case, right. Use what your dog already finds rewarding it, saying hi to that person so I can use that to my advantage. All I had to do is get a little bit of control at first and look, I go right back to it, get the behavior first offered, then add the Q So I wasn't going to tell my dog.
00:15:16:03 - 00:15:35:01
Michael J. Accetta
Sit, sit, stay. Right. I'm not commanding him to stay. I would just wait at a far enough distance from my dog was successful. He'd start to put his butt down because we had practice set a whole bunch. And then once his butt goes down, I send him to say hi to the individual, and boom runs down, and goes to say hi.
00:15:35:06 - 00:15:57:26
Michael J. Accetta
Great. I've just rewarded him with what he already found. Rewarding without having to say anything. I didn't have to add a Q verbally because the person became the Q. We're getting a little technical here and a little advanced but essentially don't spend time adding the word if your dog doesn't know the behavior first and then use what your dog already finds rewarding in the environment.
00:15:59:14 - 00:16:19:10
Michael J. Accetta
Oh, my dog really loves chewing on the garbage. Okay. Is there any way you could possibly control that to the point where you can actually send them to maybe put something in the garbage? And that's an advanced training technique, but. Right, you could do that if my dog loves the garbage. Okay. The first thing I'm going to do is get my dog to leave the garbage alone.
00:16:20:15 - 00:16:33:18
Michael J. Accetta
Then I'm actually going to teach my dog to put something in the garbage intentionally. For me, this is what I did with my son, not a dog, but my son. He's three years old and he just he was interested in the garbage pail. So I taught him how to go over, unlock it and throw out a piece of garbage.
00:16:34:04 - 00:16:49:21
Michael J. Accetta
Now he cleans up my living room all the time. We have a garbage truck like he loves cleaning up garbage. Maybe he'll be a garbage man when he grows up, but he loves that kind of cleaning mentality and keeping everything orderly. And maybe that's a little bit of our family dynamic and trying to keep everything clean all the time.
00:16:49:21 - 00:17:06:22
Michael J. Accetta
But right. I didn't say, Hey, clean up your room first. The first thing I did was show him. I demonstrated that when I pick stuff up and throw him out, he wants to do it. And then I said, Hey, thanks for cleaning up, buddy. That's awesome. I rewarded him and then I use what he already found rewarding.
00:17:06:22 - 00:17:31:27
Michael J. Accetta
He wants to clean up. He wants to be involved in the garbage pail. Okay, what can we do those things together? Boom. Perfect. And then the third solution is to set your dog up for success. Constantly, constantly set your dog up for success. A lot of people say reward-based training does not work, and they've had personal experience with it not working simply because they're putting their dog in a situation that their dog is not ready for.
00:17:33:01 - 00:18:02:22
Michael J. Accetta
If your dog is not ready to be around a thousand people at a packed stadium because they've never been in that situation before and you're trying to teach them something new, it is way too stressful. We have to remove them from that environment, set them up for success by eliminating distractions, using their preferred reinforcer, breaking down the behavior into manageable pieces that they can digest, and then rewarding them heavily so they can build their confidence in that behavior.
00:18:04:11 - 00:18:27:09
Michael J. Accetta
You cannot do that in a stressful environment. You personally imagine trying to learn something new. Imagine the first day of work. You might be excited, you might be nervous, you might be anxious. You try and do everything right trying to impress the boss, and you mess up the classic movie, classic life, right? You mess up your first day, you get the coffee wrong, or you spill something or you drop the papers or whatever's going on.
00:18:27:11 - 00:18:40:02
Michael J. Accetta
Maybe you had an amazing first day, but odds are at some point you were in a nervous situation. I want you to think about it for a second. You were in a nervous or stressful situation and you did not think as perfectly as you usually do.
00:18:42:26 - 00:19:09:03
Michael J. Accetta
Why would you intentionally put your dog in a situation where it's harder for them to learn and then punish them for not doing as well of a job? Set them up for success and reward them heavily so that you can build their confidence in what your expectation of them is Now, I want to give you something to make this ten times easier and to keep you organized so that you can teach your dog the behavior first.
00:19:09:17 - 00:19:37:19
Michael J. Accetta
So that you know what? Q You're going to add to the behavior what your dog is finding rewarding so you can actually kind of pair it together and then how set your dog up for success and get long-term success in training. I'm going to give you my training template, my actual planner that I use on every single client, and every single dog so that I stay organized and know what I've done, what I need to do, and where I'm going in my training so I can stay accountable and organized.
00:19:38:02 - 00:19:57:16
Michael J. Accetta
I'm going to put a link in the description, or you can just head over to https://www.matadork9.com/planner. I want to thank you guys for listening today. If you have questions comments or concerns about dog training, make sure you let me know either on social media or leave a review on this podcast.
00:19:57:26 - 00:19:59:18
Michael J. Accetta
Thank you guys for listening and I'll see you next time.