The Hidden Value of Rewards
Kay Laurence
© Teaching Dogs 2006. Vol 4 Iss 4&5
"Reward your Dog". We've heard this many, many times in many various formats. It takes a lot of experience to get the best from a reward - where the reward delivers everything the dog needs to want to offer the behaviour again and again, with passion. Often delivery of a reward is not enough, many other factors influence the effect of the reward.
Back in the olden times, class instructors were perpetually yelling "praise your dog". It seemed to be the hardest challenge for many folk to praise the dog in a way that was actually REWARDING for that dog. We grow up with the illusion that a "good dog" is sufficient, the dog will understand immediately that the task was carried out correctly and that even when said through gritted teeth, you really mean "good dog". Yeah.
A reward is only effective if the receiver of the reward finds it rewarding. It sounds simple, but poor delivery can make the reward more trouble than its value and have a backlash effect on the training and learning process. Run down the Reward Check List and make sure that for the dog you are training, this minute, that the reward is doing the appropriate job.
Type of Reward
Food
Not all dogs find all food rewarding. Dogs can be more activated by the anticipation of the food, rather than the food itself. In fact I know a few dogs that can successfully catch the food at the back of the mouth, store in their for several minutes, and cough the lot up to enjoy at a later moment. Especially when training has finished and all the other dogs are watching.
Wet food with a high scent stimulating the dog. Dogs do not need previous knowledge to know that meat is what they want. They can learn that cheese is rewarding, but it is not quite the effect of raw, fresh meat.
The factors influencing your food decision are:
1. Desirability
Does the dog want that reward. How can you rate desirability? offer two choices of food in either hand, half close the fist and waft the scent of the food under the dog’s nose, until you are able to see a preference in response to one food more than the other. If no preference is shown, then there is probably no preference. It is the smell of the food that will motivate the dog, not the process of eating it. Great smelling food, quickly eaten, is not better than poor smelling food that takes 3 minutes to chew. Think of ice cream! Great food, great flavour, but not chewable.
2. Pocketability
Can you carry this food in training easily? Will it ruin your pocket, will it go off quickly if left for a few hours? Can you quickly take one piece out of your pocket at a time?
3. Stimulating Scent
Does the food give off enough scent to interest the dog? Remember your hands will also become scented and act as a continuous reminder of the availability of rewards.
The food maybe good for the dog, but a dried kibble is usually quite low in scent until dampened with warm water. This certainly removes its pocketability when it will turn to mush after 15 minutes.
4. Portion control
Can you deliver small enough chunks to be quickly eaten? Raw meat is an excellent treat, but the very devil to flick off your fingers if in very small chunks. For the toy dogs this may be the size of half your finger nail.
5. Price
Some great foods would be greatly appreciated by many dogs. As a special treat, for special occasions your pocket may stretch that far, but for every day training it may get too expensive, either to purchase or in time to prepare.
6. Preparation
Treat slicing becomes a daily task, and can contribute to warming up the dogs for their training sessions. But nearly all food will require some preparation, which is not always practical unless you have a good knife and chopping board. Chicken pieces are great treats, but need cooking, peeling off the carcass, and then dicing. If slightly over cooked they will disintegrate in your pocket.
7. Deliverability
Can you deliver with your hands quickly? Can the dog take the treat without fingers? If the treat is delivered to the floor can the dog see it easily? Liver cake is a great treat, good scent and nutritionally balanced, but a disaster if it crumbles on contact with the floor. It encourages the dog to spend energy finding every last crumb - or becomes a distraction at a later time.
8. Thirst factors
Many foods that are high in flavour or scent are also high in salt (sodium) content and will leave the dogs very thirsty for some hours afterwards.
Verbal Praise
This is not an easy skill to acquire. Some dogs can become over excited with praise, others are quite immune to lashings of flattery. For a dog living in a busy "verbal" household, praise can just pass them by as so much white noise. Only the response of the dog is important, and praise needs to be used appropriate to the dog and to the behaviour.
It is certainly a good stand by in the absence of other rewards. Association needs to be well conditioned to make praise effective, and the link between the emotional state and the verbal praise must continue for the rest of the life of that praise. The chosen words or tone, must be said consistently in conjunction with activities the dog finds pleasurable. This is easy to incorporate in every day interactions with the dog.
You can relax a dog with verbal praise that has been associated with naturally relaxed behaviour. This praise needs to reflect the mood in cadence, tone and pitch.
Equally, you can excite a dog with praise that has been associated with exciting activities, such as hunting for food or a toy or greeting. Again the praise needs to reflect the mood.
Physical reward
This can vary from physically stepping away from the dog, to a deep massage - again depending on what that dog finds rewarding, NOT what the person finds rewarding. Often a trainer or owner is shaped by the first dog they train. This may be a dog that found physical contact very rewarding and the owner was equally comfortable touching and stroking the dog. Another dog they train may find this quite irritating - physical praise needs to be good for the dog and appropriate to the behaviour.
My dogs very much like physical contact, it is usually conditioned as very young puppies and in association with attention. When living in a multi-dog household, one-to-one attention is highly rewarding and many behaviours can be rewarded in that spotlight, that would otherwise be objectionable - such as grooming.
But the dogs all like different physical contact, from the major hug Arnold enjoys to the scritch on the sternum that Kent enjoys. The collies love attention and fussing, but generally detest the idea of a cuddle. They like to lean on you for contact, but would not miss grooming if it never happened again in their lives. I have met collies that find physical proximity uncomfortable, probably an unplanned outcome of generations of farm breeding (most farm dogs on wet days are not popular neighbours when stinky from varieties of sheep and cow dung). These dogs will often exhibit stress when taught close heel positions or even in freestyle cued to weave through the handlers legs. They are far happier at a distance, where they can also use their eye to monitor cues and activities.
We've turned around a few recall dogs with an excessive amount of physical flattery and verbal nonsense. Especially effective for the dogs that would return for a slice of liver, but eat and be off. I hold the collar with one hand and physically praise the dogs with as much hand contact, quite vigourous rubbing and verbal singing for AT LEAST 60 SECONDS. This is a considerably long time, especially if you actually keep an eye on your watch. If done effectively you should be puffing a bit at the end as well. The dog will certainly want to have a good shake to settle the fur back into order, and then resume hunting. Ten or more sessions of this on a successful recall and you can see the dogs become addicted to it. There is a warning also: beware transferring every ounce of dirt from the dog to your hands and clothing, and if carried out effectively you will have a dog that sticks to you more than is healthy ….
Go on, off you go!
A Toy
Toys in themselves can be intrinsically rewarding. A dog may simply enjoy the texture and mouthing on an object - particularly if the object has a pleasant association from puppy times. The dog may enjoy the noise production, or tossing the toy around, playing with their feet and generally enjoying the interaction.
Toys are excellent rewards for behaviours where the dog needs to relieve some stress, or entertain themselves alone for a while.
Games
These can be particularly beneficial when played in partnership with people. The game itself is rewarding and the dog will associate the reward with an object, a cue word, if used with consideration, and pleasure in our company. Additionally during play the dog learns a lot about the way we move, play, change balance, give up, persist and our body cues.
Games need to have rules and can vary in intensity, dangerousness, points scored and duration. They can be very exciting or simply a mutual tug to relieve stress. Games can arouse the dog, teach the dog self control and transfer emotional context to the proceeding behaviour. Games with other dogs can also be used as a reward, when appropriate to a specific situation, such as self control around play mates, followed by the playtime.
With all rewards the value, duration, placement and delivery must be pre-planned and thought out, as each can affect the effectiveness of the reward.
Duration
The length of time a reward takes will punctuate the rhythm of the behaviour being taught. If a dog has run away from another dog on a recall, come across a field, the reward duration should equal the length of time the dog has had to maintain concentration on the behaviour and the amount of self control the dog needed to leave a rewarding situation.
If you are teaching the dog to paw tap an object, the reward should be in equal duration to the behaviour. Tap, bite, swallow.
To keep short punctuation with physical praise I would not exceed 3 seconds, and to extend the delivery of a treat I would stretch the process up to 10 seconds. This can begin with the click, followed by an 8 second mini drama that ends in the food delivery. Remember anticipation of a reward is as, if not more, rewarding than the acquisition itself. As soon as the dog hears the click and looks for the reward, you can begin by moving towards the food container, I have even asked the dog to join me to hunt for the container, open up the pot, ensure a good waft in the direction of the nose, then shuffled the food around the pot for a few seconds trying to decide which piece looks the absolute best one for that absolutely superb behaviour. All of that interactive process IS the reward.
A long reward delivery carries a danger that the behaviour can be forgotten in the all consuming reward moment. This is particularly true when teaching new behaviours, especially puzzle solving. The reward needs to be simple, non-distracting, consistent and quick.
But if you are practising memory skills then using long duration rewards as a distraction can improve concentration. Food delivery may be quick, but if the process of eating the reward, begins with a mini search, followed by decision making sniff, then a quality assurance tasting session the duration of the process can become unrewarding. Using familiar foods will reduce this with food that is easily picked up and swallowed.
Mabel demonstrated that although a branded treat may have everything required in flavour and size, it easily got stuck between teeth and required heavy duty tongue gymnastics to complete the process, by which time she had completely forgotten what she was doing and fluency never ever peeked over the horizon. Other dogs will collect the food, and still be eating during the next behaviour - multi taskers!
Games can vary greatly in duration, a three second tug time is perfect. Long games will not only interfere with memory skills, but extract energy from the reserve. Develop a variety of games of different energies, a gently tug that can last longer or the vigorous tug workout that cannot be repeated too many times.
Placement
This can make or break a behaviour. Although the click promises a reward, if the reward takes too long to occur, or is preceded by a lengthy search then it loses value and can become punishing. I have seen dogs flinch when they hear the click, because the opposite happened and the food was delivered to the dog at such an alarming rate and with such vigour that the dog anticipated an unpleasant process. The behaviour rate definitely slowed down in both cases.
When learning new behaviours the placement of the reward should set the dog up at the optimum place to begin the next behaviour. If the dog gets the treat at the physical point of completion, then it will need to initiate one or more movements to find the starting place of the behaviour. If you are practising the drop down position from standing then click for the correct movement but reward the dog in the standing position. This sets the dog up to finish the reward and without delay begin the behaviour again. This is valuable when teaching fluency, especially in connection with repetitive muscle movements.
If the food is delivered to the place of completion two outcomes will affect the behaviour. Firstly, the reinforcement balance will be heavily loaded to the end result, the outcome, with both the click and the reward at the same point. This leaves the opening behaviour less reinforced, and very often it is the opening of the behaviour that ensures the correct completion. Secondly the dog can relax the muscles on completion during the reward process. This is particularly useful if you want to teach duration of a behaviour, but a nuisance if you want to teach quick responses, or fast repetitions of a behaviour.
When teaching the dog to drop on cue you are looking for:
- A quick relation between the cue and the behaviour
- A contraction of the muscles that will lead to an accurate dropping movements (as opposed to a sit down, or bow down)
- A poised position on the floor.
If the poised drop position is to be used as a control mechanism or demonstration of control, it is highly likely that the dog will need to leave that position very quickly for another movement. The muscles need to be held poised and ready for action. By rewarding in a standing position the dog will learn to drop, hold the muscles and then rise quickly for the reward. If you are looking for duration in the poised drop position then the click can be delayed in small increments.
If I am looking to settle a dog down for a relaxed duration, then I will teach the dog to change onto one hip, on the cue “settle”, and in this case the reward will come to the dog after the (soft) click. (I discriminate with different clicks to indicate a yeah, go to it - chase the food with the ordinary click, and a muffled click for the relax, you done good, I am returning with your food, click.)
Placement needs to be variable, appropriate to the behaviour you are trying to teach and the dog that is trying to learn it. I am teaching Dottie to turn her head to her right. I sit in a chair, with food at nose height. To prevent the movement being over strongly linked to one position only I vary the base position with her in the stand, sit or down. As she moves her head, I click and offer the food on her left. She does not need to move her feet to collect the food, I can maintain the base position, and by turning her head to the other direction, I am setting up the opening for the muscles on the right side of her neck to want to move. Once she has acquired the movement, to extend duration of the pose I would swap the delivery point to the outcome of the movement - holding the head to her right.
The placement changes as the outcome of the learning changes. Once the behaviour is established I will vary the placement.
Checking the function of the ears: I will often test a verbal cue by tossing a treat away, and giving the cue whilst the dog is picking up the treat. At that moment they are not looking at me and can only listen to the cue, but, (and there is always a dog called But) some dogs concentrate so much on the eating process they do not hear ANY cues at that time.
Make reward collection simple: Try not to use placement as a competition. Imagine completing your week's work, and going to the pay office to collect the brown envelope. "Ah, this week your pay is somewhere in the third office on the right …… you'll need to go and find it".
Nice. Thank you. That process could easily add distaste to the reward and reduce its value.
If you are a Treat Tosser, become a Treat Placer and do not rely on your tossing accuracy, especially for the visually challenged dogs. Remember to wait for the dog to look at your hand before you throw, so that they have an outside chance of seeing when the food has gone. If there is a danger of the food disappearing into a confusing background, then use a tray, sheet or bowl where the dog can be assured of acquisition. Set this up at the point to commence the behaviour again.
If you want a variable and accurate placement as you extend the opening behaviour then begin the reward drama as soon as the dog looks at you after the click, and take the treat to the exact spot.
Placement can vary from low movement, unobtrusive placement to running with you to collect a toy from another room, the car, or the kitchen. The reward begins as soon as you start the sequence that ends in a reward. Do not neglect to teach this sequence so that they become familiar with it.
Delivery
The style of delivery plays a large part. When concentrating hard on click-listening the delivery needs to be consistent, fast and with quiet body language. The movement to deliver does not want to intrude on the dog's concentration or detract from the click. When acquiring new behaviours the click will be more important to the learner than the reward. They need to pin point exactly what was happening when the click happened, compare it to what happened on the previous clicks, begin to see the pattern forming and experiment with the direction the learning is taking. For many dogs this puzzle solving process is engaging and rewarding. It allows us to use a lower value reward than perhaps the finished behaviour because of the self rewarding nature of learning, as opposed to practice.
At the other extreme we teach the recall, through a nose touch to hand, with an exciting chase-the-sausage game. On the click, I begin the body language of a ten pin bowler, and give the sausage chunk as much acceleration as possible down the room. To make it more exciting I vary the direction, often feigning one way but calling the dog quickly to look at me, and see I've thrown the other way. The game is chasing the moving sausage, not hunting for the unseen sausage. Mini hot dogs, 1" or 2cm long are perfect for this. They bounce along with a "can't catch me" cheeky little swagger. Most dogs will not resist the challenge for long. The effect it has on the recall is immediate - the faster the chase for the sausage, the faster the recall to touch. It will depend on whether you time the cue to touch whilst the sausage is being killed, or after swallow - success for a running recall is healthier AFTER swallow, not during eating.
By making a game out of the style of delivery we begin to double the value of the reward, and induce an emotional colour to the behaviour we are trying to teach. The fun of sausage chasing becomes inextricably linked to recall, making recall almost as much fun.
For the dog whose world ticks quite slowly, a slow deliberate delivery will match their learning style. You give the cue to wave a paw, they blink twice (hard drive accessing database for data match), send message to rear end to park, move body mass backwards into sit, shuffle upper weight to one side to allow considered elevation of front limb. Click. Trainer, lifts hand in slowly elevated movement towards box of food, reaches in and produces fresh kill, rolls kill back into the centre of hand and beginning at shoulder height slowly lowers the opening hand for easy delivery to mouth region.
This strategy will also work for the dogs that are chivviers - who, after the click telepathically transmit messages of hurry, hurry, hurry to the deliverer. The frenzy and frustration can become an increasing spiral, over influencing the success of each behaviour. This may be a blessing for a dog that begins a behaviour with a manana attitude, but an opposing style of delivery can change the frenzied dog to being more relaxed. The highly animated style of delivery can light the fire of the slow-to-warm beings.
But some dogs only work at one speed, and trying to change this can add frustration and become punishing.
Access to another behaviour
If a behaviour is highly rewarding, then that behaviour can be used as a reward for another behaviour. The cue for the rewarding behaviour will act as the click. This is a great technique to use the emotion of the rewarding behaviour to influence the new behaviour.
It is particularly obvious that if you use games to reward behaviours, that the cues for the game can replace the click. But equally you can use a movement, such as spin, jump or roll over, if the dog finds it rewarding, as a reward for another behaviour. This is apparent in agility where the cue to hit a contact point or turn on cue, is rewarded by the cue (click) for the next apparatus which is rewarding.
The gundog or sheepdog will hold the steady position by the handler with rock-like steadiness, because the behaviour is rewarded by their highest reward "get out there and do the job" activity.
This technique is particularly useful when teaching chains of behaviours, but handle the strategy with caution as the opportunity for the dog to self reward must be protected.
Test the reward:
You can experiment with quite interesting and important results with a range of rewards.
Begin with making a list of events that you consider rewarding for the dog. Such as:
- lick of paté
- chunk of cheese
- piece of raw heart
- a "good boy"
- pat on the head
- a hug
- jump in the air
- licking your face
- tummy rub
Focusing on one event, set the dog up for a simple free shaping session. Perhaps choose an established behaviour such as paw tap, and transfer it to a new object. After the click, give the reward, perhaps the pat on the head. Take note of how many repetitions of the behaviour the dog will offer in the next minute. If the rate of reinforcement, ie. the number of clicks stays constant or increases, then the pat on the head IS rewarding. If it decreases then remove it from your list of rewards. It ain't.
I would not advise you make a day of testing rewards, otherwise the value of the click may become discharged, but it is worth making a check on that "verbal praise", or that new super-treat, and checking how rewarding it is. The maintenance or increase in rate of reinforcement will give a fairly true indication of the value of the reward.
The cessation of the behaviour after one click and test reward is unusual because the dog trusts the click. But cessation can begin after the second delivery of the test reward because the dog couldn't quite believe you forgot to reward them. This will be a sure indication that in that situation THAT is NOT rewarding.
Not only will the mechanical measurement of the rate of reinforcement give you direct results, but also the way the dog returns to have another go, try again. Their passion to complete another behaviour will be related to the passion for the reward, their confidence in the behaviour and their enjoyment of the learning process. Dogs are nearly perfect learners and they will excel in the last two factors, that can be disturbed by a low passion, poorly delivered, badly placed reward.
Comeback keenness is a measure of teaching skills - where the increments suit the learner, and motivation for a repeat of the reward. If you are learning how to teach in appropriate increments, make sure your reward is motivating - in every aspect.
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