I wanted to share this with everyone and since I know not everyone visits training, thought I'd share it here.
I bought Leslie Nelson's Really Reliable Recall video and watched it. The part that struck me in her video is the concept of fine dining. This is the difference between eating at a fast food restaurant and a 4 course, high class, restaurant. You go in to the fast food place, gulp down your food, and head home. Nothing memorable. At the high class place, you go in, order wine, have an appetizer, salad, main course, and maybe dessert. Very memorable!
While watching this, it occured to me that I have been "jackpotting" all wrong. I have been just giving a fist full of treats. The dog eats them all quickly and they're gone. A supersized meal at McD's ISN'T better than the 4 course meal!
So this is what Leslie suggests. You fine dine your dog. Instead of giving a treat and then you're done, you break off pieces of that treat, give praise and pets and whatever else, while feeding these smaller, but MANY pieces of food. So your dog gets treats for a longer period of time, not necessarily more food. She suggest that a memorable treating experience is a longer one, not higher in quantity. I imagine I could still feed the fist full of treats if I wanted to, but I should do it one at a time, not all at once.
Since that was a "light bulb" experience for me, I wanted to share.
