Food Rewards - For and against..

rwbeagles

DPU

So you are saying that the only reason your dogs get up in the morning is because of food.  Nothing else drives them?

LOL...this one's easy to answer....yes!

It's actually the reason there are dogs at all...ready access to easily obtained food. Kinda makes one feels used...lol.

Wow, not in my house.  The order is 1.) greet me with affection  2.) Got to pee  3.)  feed me

DPU

So you are saying that the only reason your dogs get up in the morning is because of food.  Nothing else drives them?

Yes it is.  They wake me up in the morning to feed them.  They are like a alarm clock and a very accurate one at that.

timsdat

Yes it is.  They wake me up in the morning to feed them.  They are like a alarm clock and a very accurate one at that.

Wow, that is interesting....when my dogs wake up in the morning and I allow access to the dog door, they are out the door and run, romp......and take their time coming back in......when the feeding bowls are banging and they hear the mixing of kibble, that is when they realize it's time to eat.....

My dogs don't get fed until 6pm.  When I get home from work there is mass chaos, but that's b/c they know they are going for a walk and/or going out to play and wrestle. 

Coke wakes us up to pee.  If he doesn't have to go, he won't wake us up.  Kenya would never wake me up unless there was a fire or intruder or something.  She is so selfless that she will cower in a corner indefinitely if she has to poop rather than make a fuss to go outside.

My cats on the other hand....they are scratching at the door, howling and howling for their food if they so much as hear me roll over in bed.  Luckily, my oldest just figured out how to open the food container so now he feeds everyone. 

DPU

spiritdogs

A primary reinforcer is simply something that fulfills a basic need for living and reinforces the organism without the need for prior learning. 

Is that what Benedict was asking about "a basic need for living" and whether affection is included.  For purposes of definitions, what is 'basic need' versus 'need' for living and 'need' not living related.

Waiting for answer.  Don't you all recognize an order, for living, not for living.....

So "without need for prior learning" can be accomplished for any need?

I use food as one part of a motivator in preliminary teaching. Once teaching of a particular is finished, the motivation for the behaviour transfers over into real-world rewards, with the odd treat still thrown in for the "treat" factor (dogs find the element of surprising rewards quite fascinating).

I use food also in more complex behaviour modification techniques, such as working with fearful dogs.

There is no such thing as "creating hunger" by using treats simply because you use food. It is like saying you are creating "lack of toy play" by using toys as a reinforcer, and creating "neglect" by using affection (not to mention, emotionally-starved dogs are just as apt to learn to resource guard people as a food-starved dog is to resource guard food, if the behaviour is allowed to get to that point.). As long as the dog is getting enough calories in a day, the dog will not "go hungry" because it got treats at another time of the day.  If that was the case the bedtime cookies they get (no behaviour required) and the snack after our supper if we have something healthy left over (no behaviour required) would also "create hunger". And they certainly do no such thing.  As long as the dog is not getting too many calories, then again all is well.

I happen to know quite a bit about metabolism, and the physiology of hunger (whoo, I can even give the chemical formula for glucose, and the entire pathway of how it is converted to usable energy in the body, but I won't go there...*G*), without having to argue personal opinion. So I feel pretty darn confident that my dogs are not getting hungry, or are suffering in any manner, by eating treats as a part of learning, and I shall continue to use food rewards in the way that I use them, and have used them, to work to modify behaviour.

Cheers!

Well my response to this can be shortened down to my normal response in that it depends on the dog.

With that being said I think it is important to find and use what is motivating to the dog, especcially in the beginning when one is trying to teach something new. I have no problem using food as a reward but I do not normally use it always except for the recall in which case I always have a treat to reinforce the recall, mostly because I run my dogs out on the mesa and they can range out a bit in their play and food is useful in making certain they return when asked.

 For teaching I use toys, food, play and praise all as rewards but the dogs do not receive a reward for every execution of a command although I do say "good" as that is how they know that I like what they did.

 I do not see food rewards as a bribe although I suppose if you could not get your dog to do anything without a food reward then perhaps there is a problem with the relationship itself, but the problem IMO is not the food.

 To close, I suppose I come somewhere in the middle of this topic, food is good, dogs like food, but if I have to always offer food to get a response then I have a problem. Please note that I used the word have and not the word choose , because there is nothing wrong if you choose to offer food for every correct response.

With Kord his motivation is a frisbee first, food second then praise/affection.

When he was a little one I could get him to do anything for a food reward, with the follow-up verbal "good boy" and a pat on the head. As he matured and developed he forgot about food, (only kind that were rewarding were high end no no kind of treats) food was not as rewarding to him at all. When he hit 6 months or so the frisbee was his greatest reward, and that has not changed so far. This dog will stand on his head and recite the alphabet backwards for a frisbee.

Our routine in the morning? Well the cats wake me up for breakfast, he goes out and gets fed last, and he still sits before he will even touch his food, waiting for the ok from me.

As for affection, he controls that too. He is most affectionate in the morning, when I get home, or in the evening before bed. He does not like to be bothered when working with a toy. He tolerates it but I have stopped even trying to pet or touch him in anyway as a reinforcement and stick to verbal praise. He is more or less telling me, not now mom, I did what you want, THROW IT, throw it, throw it!

Someone mentioned over on the other side, before it was moved here,  I think it was Edie, but I could be wrong. Either way the statement more or less was that people are afraid to admit that their dogs love something more than them. Well I can tell you that is not the case in this house. We know where we stand. If Kord won a contest and he could only choose 1 item from:

1.) Lifetime love and affection from us(gets it anyway) 2.) Lifetime supply of jack mackerel or 3.) Lifetime supply of Frisbee's  I can tell you he is going to go for the frisbee's hands down. We do not even rate on that scale. And we know it.

dgriego

 To close, I suppose I come somewhere in the middle of this topic, food is good, dogs like food, but if I have to always offer food to get a response then I have a problem.

I think this comes closest to my thoughts on the matter. My dogs are all different. If I have a tug toy in my hand and a treat, Jaia will ignore the treat every time. He is focused on that toy. Roast beef doesn't stand a chance against sticks and balls ... Cara on the other end of the spectrum, is a heavy "food mo" as we call it. She'll work for carrots. But all of them will work for praise if I don't have a toy or food on me. And once a behavior is learned, they will work for nothing. I don't know how long that would last, as I've never tested it. I do a lot of praising for what they do.

Liesje

My cats on the other hand....they are scratching at the door, howling and howling for their food if they so much as hear me roll over in bed.  Luckily, my oldest just figured out how to open the food container so now he feeds everyone. 

My cats can be pretty annoying when it comes to the canned food....I do free feed dry food........is that your situation?

I was trying to avoid free feeding, but my 19 year old cat is voting for free feeding and it's helping keeping weight on the old fart.....

Kim_MacMillan

I use food as one part of a motivator in preliminary teaching. Once teaching of a particular is finished, the motivation for the behaviour transfers over into real-world rewards, with the odd treat still thrown in for the "treat" factor (dogs find the element of surprising rewards quite fascinating).

I happen to know quite a bit about metabolism, and the physiology of hunger (whoo, I can even give the chemical formula for glucose, and the entire pathway of how it is converted to usable energy in the body, but I won't go there...*G*), without having to argue personal opinion. So I feel pretty darn confident that my dogs are not getting hungry, or are suffering in any manner, by eating treats as a part of learning, and I shall continue to use food rewards in the way that I use them, and have used them, to work to modify behaviour.

In your first paragraph can you state why you transition from food to real-world rewards and it also seems the transition starts pretty quickly in the training.  I think it is important for others to think about using alternatives other than using the easy dish of roast beef. 

Since you are a "happen to know quite a bit about metabolism" person, then explain the close to final stage of starvation where the stomach is completely empty, hunger pain is gone, muscles are disappearing, and the dog will not take any food treats.  Why no hunger?  And when you rehab, when does hunger get created, and explain how hunger changes as the dog get back to normal.  I've rehabbed dogs in this state and I only do this rehab because this is the type of dogs given to me.  I observe very closely and I see no difference in the behavior of a starving dog on the road to recovery and the behavior of a human created food driven dog.  In this recovery, I use affection as the motivator and then I continue to use it.

Shadow won't eat a full portion of food ( about 1.5 to 2 cups ) unless I am there. When I leave for work in the morning, he's not in an eating mood. He may nibble or take a few bites with DW. But he doesn't chow down unless I am there. He has always been that way, before even when I knew whether to click or tssst. It was part of what led me to research and understand that he is Sibe in temperment and metabolism, specifically, as well as in some physiology. Sibes do not eat a lot at one time and they are, for lack of a better word, pack-oriented. In fact, on that dog personality test we did a week or so ago, this was his score.

Your dog's drives
Prey   = 50
Pack   = 65
Defense - Fight  = 45
Defense - Flight = 25

I had a Lab for a while in the 80's. I've known other people with Labs. They clean the bowl. Usually, you can't free-fed a Lab because they will gorge. They are food motivated.

Shadow is motivated for treats and meat. He could have easily been more motivated to play with a ball, like my BIL's Aussie. That's her ultimate reward, as much or more than treats. Or, like some other dogs, just always desiring affection. For him, it happens to be food. He can eat to his content. 45 minutes later, he wants to train for treats.

As for the reason dogs get up, it is, I expect the same for most living creatures. Go pee and find something to eat. Or work to get food, whether that is hunting or working some job. NILIF is life. Nothing in life is free, it's not just a training regimen. Someone, somewhere, had to work to earn money to buy food. A creature has to get out and hunt for food, or forage for food. Cows work by walking the fields in order to graze. That's work.

There's nothing wrong with using a basic need or desire to motivate.

I am for food rewards. They work, the accomplish the objective in a humane way. In fact, I haven't seen anything yet that proves treat reward training is not humane.

DPU

In your first paragraph can you state why you transition from food to real-world rewards and it also seems the transition starts pretty quickly in the training. 

Well no, I didn't really state why I do it, just that I do it and that I switch over. I didn't feel I needed to explain myself as to the "why", but if the reason is wanted then I'll share. I didn't figure the reason mattered, it was just a question of thoughts about using food during teaching.  

DPU

then explain the close to final stage of starvation where the stomach is completely empty, hunger pain is gone, muscles are disappearing, and the dog will not take any food treats.  Why no hunger?  And when you rehab, when does hunger get created, and explain how hunger changes as the dog get back to normal. 

Well, since I don't feel you're actually looking for a true answer, but rather are trying to express some sort of point, I'm not going to spend time answering it as I feel it would be a waste of my own time, since that's not a short response to be made.

DPU

I observe very closely and I see no difference in the behavior of a starving dog on the road to recovery and the behavior of a human created food driven dog. 

Well, I haven't lived with a starving dog, that's for sure, but I have seen cases of starving dogs, and I have to say I have certainly seen huge differences between a dog that is starving and a dog that is simply motivated by food. Although in the end again, they are both still just motivated by food as opportunistic animals. The non-starving dogs are simply not desperate and fixated like starving dogs are, and are usually a lot less protective of food.

But I do think that eventually we have to realize too that a once-starving dog becomes non-starving in a relatively short period of time, and once a dog trusts that food will be available every day (it will take time of course), that desperation over food does usually disappear in time. And I know this because of other people who have also worked with starving dogs. I don't need to have "done it myself" to realize this, especially in the modern world with the wonder that is a computer, where the information is out there for people to share with each other. You choose to use affection, that's fine. Other people choose to use food as part of the teaching toolkit once the starvation is over and the dog's association towards food changes, that's fine too.

I think it's important to separate the generality from the rare exception. I for one am the first to admit that I would change my strategy if I lived with a food-starved dog, at least in the beginning stages. But for the most part you'll notice I'm sure none of these dogs are starving, or in any way deprived of food. They are healthy, happy, normal dogs who simply find food motivating to learn - along with other motivators such as toys, praise, touch, etc. Be careful not to get too wrapped up in the "exception" so that the greater picture is ignored along with it, and ends up being the bad guy for it. Yes, it's extremely important to realize that there are special cases, that require different strategies, but that doesn't make what everyone does with their normal dogs somehow "bad" or "wrong".

ron2

Go pee and find something to eat.

Cool, I seem to be the only one that gets greeted lovingly from my dogs first thing in the morning.  Since that is what they do, I surely would miss that if it didn't happen and of course if it wasn't done in the first place, I would have nothing to miss.

From DPU in the "fix it" thread: 

Food is meant for nourishment and to eliminate hunger.  This my responsibility to the dog.  If it is used for other reasons, then I question why and if there are other alternatives.

DPU, as an admitted gourmand and a person who considers eating to be an enjoyable hobby, I respectfully disagree with the idea that food is just to eliminate hunger. Eating can also (at least for humans) be purely for pleasure and satisfaction. That is why things like desserts and candies and meringues were made - no nutritional value, not healthy, but enjoyable to consume. Even when our basic needs are being met (say, by a nutritious and filling dinner), we still are "motivated" to seek out additional and superfluous foodstuffs (such as dessert). In fact, when we are truly deprived of food, we often would prefer not to have these "treats" in favor of having something a little more healthful and substantial. When we are in a healthy state of nourishment, however, we will often go to great lengths and great expense in order to obtain these "unnecessary" food items because we are motivated to do so by the anticipation of the pleasure of eating them.

So, to me, training treats are like chocolates. They are meant neither to nourish nor to eliminate hunger, but rather to provide palatal pleasure to the person/animal consuming them. I personally don't see how providing pleasure beyond simple sustenance could be linked to intentionally depriving something of its basic needs, but perhaps that's just because of my personal biases.