Clean Run - September 2013 - 16

It is extremely important that your dog learns to value both food and toys equally.
Think of both of these rewards as a form of money, one is a check and the other is cash.

This dog is happy to take
whichever reward is given to
him—food or toy.

it, encouraging and rewarding sniffing the ground. Many people already
struggle with unwanted sniffing behavior and, therefore, do not need to create
more opportunities for the dog to sniff.
We should use toy rewards when we
are rewarding behaviors that require
speed and drive, such as driving into the
reinforcement zone from a restrained
recall. Remember that toy drive is nothing more than predation, which is innate
in every dog. Hunting down and killing prey takes quick wit, speed, agility,
self-control, and drive—all qualities we
want in our agility behaviors.
We should use tug when we want to
reinforce drive and focus on us, such as
when we are starting any sort of training
with our dogs. Winding my dog up with
the reinforcement of tugging allows him
not only to make a strong connection
with me and build our relationship, but
also takes away environmental distractions since the dog is solely focused
on the highly rewarding game of tug—
nothing else matters except the game
we are having!
As shown by the acceleration training example, using a toy allows me to
reward at the proper place, ahead of
me. Agility demands speed, drive, and
intensity for the majority of the behaviors. Therefore, tugging will be the most
commonly used form of payment for
your dogs. Tugging offers an additional
bonus because there is nothing better to

This dog is focused solely
on his handler, even when
going into the ring.

No matter the distraction, the
dog still only cares about the
reinforcement being offered.

naturally teach a dog to shift his weight
onto his hind end. Weight shift is crucial
for quick turning, jumping, contact performance, and weave pole entries. If the
dog is tugging properly, good weight
shift will be a natural by-product.

10, 20, or 30 + seconds then when an
unwanted behavior occurs, you now
have to withhold the reward for double
that time. Not only are you wasting
valuable learning time, but you are also
creating a bored, distracted, slow, disinterested, and potentially shutdown dog.

We should use food rewards for stationary or static behaviors, such as sit. Food
rewards are also crucial for behaviors
that call for a high rate of reinforcement, meaning that you need to give a
reward frequently within a short period
of time while the dog is offering the
behavior or maintaining criteria; for
example, 30 rewards per minute.
High rates of reinforcement are necessary when teaching a new behavior so
that you can effectively use negative
punishment. If I am planning a training session that requires a high rate of
reinforcement, then I might plan to have
30-40 small treats that I would like to
deliver within a 2-minute period. During this time, my dog should make a
wrong decision, giving me an unwanted
behavior. If I am giving a treat every 1
to 2 seconds, then when I withhold the
reward for the wrong behavior I will
only need to withhold it for 2-4 seconds.
This will be enough time for him to
understand the loss of the reward so that
he can figure out what does get him the
reward. The short period of time helps
keep a keen working dog.
If you are like many handlers who use
food and only give a food reward every

Your Money Must

Matter to Your Dog!

A big problem arises when one or both
of these reinforcements are not actually rewarding for your dog. If your
dog does not love his food and toys, for
whatever reason (punishment, learned
behavior, or overabundance), then when
you try to use them to train and reward
behavior, your dog will actually be
punished! Again, if a behavior is not
rewarded, then it is being punished.
Remember, just because you call something a reward doesn’t mean that your
dog finds it rewarding.
Your job is to cultivate a strong reinforcement structure and history so your
dog understands that reinforcement (his
money) must be earned. Your goal is to
help your dog really love both food rewards and tugging. This should be your
priority before training agility behaviors
and skills. If you put time and effort
into cultivating good reinforcement, you
and your dog will reap the rewards! D
Author’s Note: Excerpts from this
article are from the Derrett’s online
agility courses, Ultimate Agility.

Laura Manchester-Derrett is part owner of UK Agility in the United Kingdom and UK Agility International in North America with husband Greg Derrett. She currently
splits her time between England and California while running the two organizations. Laura and Greg also travel the world training competitors in the Greg Derrett
handling system. Laura has been training dogs half of her life and has competed at the top of the sport, to include winning the UKA Nationals and UK Grand Prix and
representing Great Britain at the IFCS WAC 2010, and as a European Open team member for Great Britain.
16

Clean Run | September 13

Clean Run - September 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - September 2013