TulsaPets Magazine January 2021

40 TulsaPets • January/February 2021 TRAINING TIP Reward the Behavior You’re Looking For WRITTEN BY: Mary Green Y ou have probably heard me and others speak about positive reinforcement training. There are many different training method- ologies that one could follow. There is “bal- anced” training, force-free or “purely positive,” “traditional,” clicker training and E-collar (shock collar) to name a few. So what is positive reinforcement training, and why choose this as the method you should use? How can you make training your dog fun and positive? Easy! Reward the behavior that you are looking for. The science behind R+ (positive reinforcement) is that of adding something that increases the likelihood of that behavior increas- ing in the future. Reinforcement, by definition, makes something stronger. When we reward a desirable behavior, our pets figure this out. They begin to offer behav- iors that we have been rewarding. You probably see them automatically sit when you reach for the treats. Maybe they put their paws up on you because you have trained them to shake hands. What should the reward be? Ask the dog! Most dogs like to work for food, which can be their regular dog food or some yummy dog treats. Other dogs work for toys that they can chase, retrieve, squeak or destroy. Are you worried you might not have the rewards handy? You always have the most important rewards with you! Your voice with praise and happy words and your hands available for petting and scritches. If I am setting up a training session with my dog, I have planned with the yummy treats, a tug toy and maybe a tennis ball or two. My training sessions are short and focused on one or two behaviors that I am working on. My goal is that my dog doesn’t know when we are training versus when we are playing. I randomize the rewards. I may even combine them for a spec- tacular performance or a breakthrough. When I train this way, my dogs’ enthusiasm goes off the charts. They try everything they can think of to get that reward. I know that the reinforcement history for certain behaviors is stronger than others—that’s why we see those automatic sits! Training should be fun for the person and the pet. Besides scheduled or orchestrated training sessions, I find many more opportunities to randomly reinforce behavior that my dogs offer to me in hopes of a reward. We play, we train, we play—it’s all the same thing. In training, positive does not mean the same thing as permissive. For example, if I have told my dog to stay, and she leaves that position and comes to me before I have released her, there’s no reward happening there. But I’m not going to make a big deal out of a mistake. I may say, “uh oh” and direct her back to the spot. I give her another chance. Maybe the mistake was mine by asking for too long of a stay or asking her to sit on a slippery floor. I can set her up for success and reward the behavior that I wanted. And then we party! Don’t be stingy. Always use happy words in a pleasant tone of voice when you are giving your dog a reward. Make a memory. Positive reinforcement (reward-based) training has the backing of science. It may not be the quick fix you’re looking for, but if you make training fun and positive, you’ll have a happy trainee for the life of the pet. Note: The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behaviorists has a position statement about how to choose a trainer. It offers a good description of why to avoid aversive training methods. You can read more at: avsab.org/ wp-content/uploads/2019/01/How-to- Choose-a-Trainer-Position-Statement.pdf