If you want to teach your dog anything, it’s important to understand how they learn – so you can teach them effectively. Dogs are learning all the time – whether you *think* you’re teaching them or not…
Which means it’s highly likely you’re accidentally reinforcing behaviours you don’t want!
If a dog finds a behaviour rewarding, they’ll repeat it.
Which means you’ll see an increase in that behaviour happening again. Read on to discover the surprising rewards your dog may be accessing without you realising and learn:
- Why things are not working (or why your dog’s being ‘naughty’ or ‘stubborn’)
- How to use rewards to your advantage to encourage the behaviours you want
The Basics: How dogs learn
We all learn through consequences. Dog’s actions are shaped by the outcomes they experience, which fall into three main categories:
- Positive Consequences: Something enjoyable happens, making your dog more likely to repeat the behaviour.
- Neutral Consequences: Nothing particularly exciting happens – neither good nor bad – so the behaviour doesn’t gain much traction.
- Negative Consequences: Something unpleasant happens, discouraging your dog from repeating the behaviour.
A real life example
Imagine you call your dog back, and they come running so enthusiastically that they knock into you and hurt you. If you respond by shouting, your dog doesn’t think, “Oh no, I hurt them!” They just think, “Coming back wasn’t pleasant last time” and they’ll hesitate to return quickly in the future.
Aversives in dog training
An aversive is something that’s unpleasant that is used to suppress or diminish an unwanted behaviour – they’re generally focused on stopping something from happening.
An aversive can be an unpleasant sound, a physical correction, the pain caused by an e-collar, or a harsh scolding.
As humans, we’re sort of pre-programmed to want to correct things. In the moment, these methods may feel like they’re working, but they’re doing long term damage. Teaching through fear never gives lasting results.
Using these methods can result in your dog becoming suspicious, uneasy when you’re around, or they may even react aggressively towards you.
Who wants to be hauled around, shoved, or forced? Nobody. And while this training may appear flashy and fast, it does a huge amount of damage to your relationship and trust with your dog.
Rewards for dogs
Rewards are at the heart of effective, positive training. They’re how you let your dog know they’ve done a good job. And no matter how much your dog loves you, love alone isn’t enough to motivate behavior. Dogs need something in it for them – just like we do.
The key is choosing the right reward. If your training isn’t working, it’s likely that the reward isn’t valuable enough to your dog.
In dog training, we can use a variety of rewards to encourage our dogs to repeat a behaviour.
If you find you’re rewarding the behaviour you want from your dog and it’s not sticking, there’s every chance the reward you’ve chosen isn’t the right reward for your dog.
Choosing Rewards for your training
The best rewards are what your dog finds valuable. Pay attention to what they love in everyday life and what excites them most.
It’s vital to remember that it’s your dog who gets to choose what they find rewarding or reinforcing.
It can help to consider what natural reward your dog’s receiving when they perform a behaviour you’d quite like to stop! For example, if your dog gets over excited and leaps all over guests – what’s their experience of that? What’s rewarding for them about it?
Perhaps they get lots of excited noises in return for their leaps and bounds. Maybe they enjoy the physical contact. Maybe the movement relieves their excited energy and helps them eventually calm down?
Observe your dog both when they’re unable to control their impulses and in day to day life – what do they love? What does your dog find rewarding?
Sometimes the best reward isn’t food at all – it’s access to something in your dog’s environment they love, like running off-lead, sniffing, or swimming. For instance, if your dog resists jumping on guests and stays calm, letting them have a zoom around the garden could be a great reward.
Types of rewards
Dog training isn’t all about treats – although they can be very effective especially at the start of your training. However, having a range of rewards that you know YOUR dog finds valuable will make an enormous difference to your progress.
Food
It’s important to think about the type of food you’re using and the situation you’re using it in.
- LOW VALUE: Kibble, dry biscuits, dry dog treats
- MEDIUM VALUE: Semi-moist dog treats
- HIGH VALUE: Cooked meats, cheese and pates
Typically, low value foods are quite hard and don’t have much of an odour. These low value treats can be fine at home or in your garden, but they don’t cut the mustard out on a walk or in the face of very exciting distractions.
Semi moist dog treats are slightly squidgy and slightly smelly – the odour is important! For some dogs, these will be effective in distracting situations where there are other people and other dogs around. For other dogs these treats still aren’t rewarding enough to control their impulses in stimulating situations.
High value rewards like chicken, ham, beef, or tiny little bits of cheese can be the difference between your dog listening to you over giving into temptations. They’re super tasty, they smell good, and they’re something they don’t get all the time.
Environmental
Environmental rewards are things that your dog gets to access or enjoy in their environment that they really enjoy.
These will be different for different dogs, but could include:
- Running
- Swimming
- Going off lead
- Digging
- Playing
- Sniffing
- Chasing
- Going outside
- Interacting with a person or another dog
There’s no limit to the environmental and social rewards you can use. Watch your dog to see what they find rewarding and put it in your rewards bank to help you with your dog’s training.
For example, perhaps you’ve asked your dog to show self restraint and not jump up at a passer by. Your dog’s succeeded and rather than reaching for a treat, you let them off lead to have a zoom about and celebrate their success!
Toys
Toys and play are incredibly effective when training dogs. Learning the art of self control can be really hard for dogs, which means they can develop frustration.
A toy gives your dog an appropriate way to release that frustration – they can grab it, shake it, tug on it and expel their frustration and energy in a positive way.
You can also hide toys for your dog to find – sniffing and searching can help lower your dog’s arousal levels and gives them a job to focus on.
Choosing the right toys is critical.
A lot of the toys that you can buy in traditional pet shops are not very suitable for playing an interactive game with your dog. They don’t usually have long handles and they’re not always made of the most satisfying materials for your dog to hold and grab.
Particularly when we’re using toys and play for training, we need a toy that’s going to take the brunt of your dog’s frustration and fizz!
I recommend Tug-E-Nuff toys for this because they have long bungee handles that relieve the pressure out of tug – both on you and your dog’s neck and spine. If your dog tugs hard and enthusiastically, you’ll be very grateful for this!
They also have very satisfying bite areas for your dog to grip onto. Textures like fleece, faux fur and even real fur can be much more motivating for your dog – which means you’ll have more success in your training.
My favourites are the Faux Fur Squeaky Bungee Chaser, the Big Twizzler, the Power Clam Bungee, and the Pocket Magnet.
Dog training without treats
What if you’re worried about using too many treats? It’s a concern I hear often – nobody wants an overweight dog or a dog who’ll only listen when there’s food involved!
The good news is you control your dog’s portions! Break treats into tiny pieces, so a single reward session doesn’t add up to a whole meal or adjust your dog’s meals to compensate for the treats they’ve had during training.
These little Antos mini bones are brilliant – you can break them up into 6 little pieces – which means for every six repetitions your dog does, they’ll only have had one mini bone.
As your dog learns a new behaviour, they will need to be paid and rewarded for it – or else the behaviour is very unlikely to stick. But over time, as this new habit becomes ingrained, you’ll not need to use food to reinforce it every time. You’ll be able to use environmental rewards, play, and verbal praise to reward your dog – using treats more sporadically and less often.
In Conclusion
Focus on positive reinforcement, consistency, and clear communication with your dog and you’ll not only teach your dog new skills but you’ll build a stronger relationship too.
Remember, training isn’t about shouting commands – it’s about creating an environment where your dog feels safe, confident, and able to learn.
Whether you’re working on basic life skills or addressing more challenging behaviours, patience and positive methods will set you and your dog up for long term success.
For help with your training, check out my East Coast puppy classes and dog training classes. Or train with me online from anywhere.
Please note, this blog may contain affiliate links to products that I wholeheartedly recommend. You’ll pay no more for the products buying via my link, but I do get a little commission.
Read Next:
High-Value Dog Treats: What they are & when to use them
How to stop your dog jumping up (& encourage 4 paws on the floor)
