What if I told you that tiny little treats could beat a high level distraction like a squirrel? It doesn’t seem to make sense. The distraction is clearly more desirable than a paltry pea sized biscuit.
It would be like saying that people would choose to work for a strawberry rather than sloth by the pool with a six pack of cold ones. The temptation to sip the more appealing beer holds greater value than a four calorie berry. It seems reasonable to conclude that beers would beat strawberries.
And yet, as strawberry season starts, people flock in droves to the fields. Not only will they work for strawberries, they’ll leave their pools to do it. They will pay for the privilege of toiling in the heat to pick them.
Strawberries one. Beer Zero.
Strawberries can “win” against beers. And a measly little treat can beat a squirrel.
Value is a red herring. It’s not the only thing at play during training. We humans tend to focus on the value of the food without looking further. The hunt for the magical, squirrel beating treat begins.
When dried liver doesn’t work, we move to…. Chicken? Cheese? Steak? Boiled gizzards dusted in dried anchovies? How about a little Waygu beef with a porcini crumble? I should eat as well as the dogs I see.
I’m not saying that you should be cheap. Choose the right value of food for the job. I go into that topic in a previous blog that you can read here. During skill building, extreme food value generally is compensating for a mechanical issue.
The dog’s ability to ignore distractions is tied to the SPEED of the reinforcements in their past learning. Not the value!!!
It’s why so many people think that using positive reinforcement only works for “easy breeds” like Labs. Positive reinforcement works with all breeds. Some dogs learn despite mechanical issues. Other normal dogs do not afford trainers that luxury. My Kip is a dog that falls into the latter category. He quickly points out my errors.
If you want a dog to ignore distractions, then you have to reinforce quickly. This means working the dog around various distractions, working up through harder and harder ones. And the speed at which you pay has to be blazing fast. Why?
Because we all love easy pickings!
It’s not ONE strawberry that beat the beer. It’s the MANY strawberries in our past. For most of us, picking berries started when we were young. We ran about the field grabbing many big juicy berries. We shoved them in our mouths, bright red juice dribbling down our chins. The smell of the plants, the earth, a sign of spring.
We have a history. Those easy pickings and those positive experiences are in our brains. Rejecting the pool today was created in the fields long ago.
That’s where people go wrong in their dog training. They are focused on the one treat in their hand today. Training builds future behaviour. A well trained dog is not trained with the one cookie waving in front of its nose today. The behaviour came from the many experiences of their past.
Your dog loves easy pickings – fast rate of reinforcement. Key word is love. Good training needs to be fast. Always moving the bar so the dog progresses on their skill. It needs to be rapid fire right and right and right.
At this point most people get deeply concerned about all the cookies. They hesitate. They worry that the dog is only doing it for the food. They are worried that they will be feeding fast forever. Let it go.
Because there’s this neat little effect that happens when you commit.
Easy pickings (fast reinforcement) creates joy – a positive association. It’s an effect that seems almost too good to be true until you see it happen.
Remember the opening strawberry example. People are PAYING to work. When we have a history of easy pickings – it creates joy. We can go for long periods of time without reinforcements and keep working away despite distractions. We don’t quit when we have some bad days and nothing to show for it. We try, try, again.
For all the behaviour geeks out there, fast reinforcement creates a strong S-(R-O) association. The recipe for behavioural momentum. When the dog hears the cue, their brain leaps to the expected outcome. They’re drooling before they even get to work. The same as we start to happily drool while we drive to the strawberry field for an afternoon of back breaking work.
Committing to fast rate of reinforcement with conviction, knowing that this tipping point happens is what separates those who get magic and those who feel like they are always bribing their dog back.
If you’re at the wrong level, if you hesitate, if you’re paying too slowly, you’re hard labour. It’s hard pickings. Tedious. Boring. Frustrating. It doesn’t matter if you used cookies. How they were used was taxing on the animal. By comparison, a squirrel becomes the better pick. You become like the parent who nags their young kinds into “find more berries…pick more…get to work!” It doesn’t matter if you paid an allowance. The job sucked. It’s a bad history. It comes back to haunt you when distractions appear. You wind up with a dog that would rather do anything else because despite the cookies, they didn’t learn to like it.
The difference between treats that beat squirrels and those that do not is the speed of reinforcement.
Todays reinforcements are tomorrow’s history of reinforcement. You’re building future behaviour today. Fast reinforcement creates joy in the task. It’s the difference between the dog that loves to work and the dog that is doing so because nothing better happens to be happening.
There’s magic in speed of reinforcement.
awesomedogs 
Interesting blog and article!
I have a question about the attention of the dog and order that you give a cue and treat. So let’s say my dog and I are walking in the park, while suddenly a squirrel runs all the way to the top of the tree. At this point my dog is fixating on the moving squirrel and like u said, there is no treat that will help him to get out of the fixation. What do I do now? I give him the ‘look’ cue and give him the treat anyway while he is still looking at the squirrel? Do I first turn his head towards me, following the cue and treat? Or do I just give him the treat without cue?
My dog is a cross between labrador and pointer, so I guess the hunting aspect will be always a little more difficult to manage 🙂
Thank you for your answer!
This type of scenario is what I call a “save your butt” moment. You gotta do what you gotta do to get out with at least some “dignity”..panache…(or whatever word you want to use.) If you have a cue that words to break focus, sure, use it. But it’s “save your butt” not “good planned training.”
So to get around it, the first thing is to use google to start planning walks with a lower chance of facing the distraction that is crazy difficult. (Yes, there is almost always a way to get easier. You might have to get creative, but there are places with more squirrels and places with fewer.)
Or try putting a bear bell on the dog to warn the squirrels off early so you see fewer squirrels.
Then, work on other distractions and build the momentum.
Finally, remember that this is basically a situation where you can change your criteria.
At first you can do “notice squirrel, pay any twitch in any direction away”. Even a small one. Then as that strengthens, pay a 1/4 head turn away from the squirrel. Then 3/4 turn away. Then full turn away.
You can split your criteria to work in smaller goals.