15 Říj The crucial importance of praising your dog

The crucial importance of praising your dog

I consider praise one of the most important aspects of proper dog training. I know there are some methods that discourage handlers from praising. I strongly disagree with that, and I firmly believe you have to praise your dog a lot. Here’s why.

Obedience must be fun for your dog

When training our dogs, we need to remember that the work must be fun for them. Our dog must enjoy working with us because if he doesn’t enjoy it, he doesn’t really have a good reason to keep doing it.

Dogs that aren’t having fun while training obedience will react in one of three ways:

1. Refusing to work at all. Headstrong and dominant dogs like my Archer don’t like being “forced” to do something they don’t enjoy. And “forced” doesn’t necessarily mean physically forced. It could be just trying to coerce them with rewards. If they don’t like it, if they don’t enjoy it, if they don’t see a purpose in the activity, they will simply refuse to do it.
2. Working slowly, poorly, or “just good enough”. Other dogs’ reactions might not be so extreme, but the lack of enjoyment will still be very visible in their work. They might perform the exercise, but there will be no spirit, no power, no drive. They will be like the dogs of old, trained by the old methods: joyless and working only because they are told to do so and maybe afraid of punishment if they don’t.
3. Working only when there is a reward to be gained. This last category is actually the most dangerous one. Dogs in this category might work well during training, well enough to convince us it is time to enter a trial. And at said trial, they will find out you have no treats, no ball in your pocket. That’s when they show you what they think about this whole obedience thing. Some might just refuse to work or work poorly, like the above two categories. Others might let loose and really enjoy themselves. For example, by not coming back with the dumbbell and strutting over the field, tail sky high, with a big smile on their face. So much fun. For everyone involved really. Except for the handler of such a dog. Don’t be that handler.

It’s clear that a dog who doesn’t enjoy working with you will never really be able to perform well in obedience. Or at least never perform well where it matters: at the trials.

Now the big question is what makes our dogs enjoy the process of working with us?

Rewards = enjoyment? Well, not really…

When I ask my clients what they think makes a dog enjoy training I often get responses like, “Well, he will enjoy it when he gets good treats. Do you think I should maybe buy him some better treats?” Or similarly, “He loves to play with his ball, so he will enjoy it when he gets his ball as a reward.” 

This seems logical on the surface, but it is unfortunately not true and it doesn’t work like that most of the time. 

If we rely on the power of rewards – and it’s not important if that’s a toy or a treat or anything else for that matter (see here for inspiration on which methods to use to reward your dog) -our dog will like to work with us only for the sake of the reward. This means he won’t enjoy the work itself, only his reward. Big difference.

Now guess what such a dog will do when he finds out you don’t have your rewards with you. And don’t fool yourself. Dogs aren’t stupid. They know when you don’t have their ball or their treats in your pocket. It’s very hard to trick a dog at a trial into thinking you’ve got rewards on you. It might work once or twice, but it won’t work forever. 

Imagine your dog works with you only for the sake of rewards. Furthermore, he finds out you don’t have any at a trial. His logical conclusion can only be this: 

“Ok, what do we have here? A strange person standing over there (the judge). My handler is nervous. I can smell their sweat across half the field. The sounds are different today. I can hear hushed whispers and feel the anticipation in the air. Wait a minute! I remember this situation. No treats today. Too bad buddy, I ain’t working without them. I don’t have a good reason to.” 

Now you have a big problem. It’s very hard to fix the training of a dog who has established he won’t get rewards at a trial.

So no, rewards don’t give the dog enjoyment of the exercise. He won’t like heeling just because he gets his favorite ball for it. So what on earth makes a dog enjoy working with you?

Pay raise vs. recognition

Let me tell you a little story. Imagine you have a job and you hate it. It’s boring. You are sitting in a cubicle and pushing papers or something like that. Awful. 

Now imagine your boss comes over to you and tells you: “You are getting a raise, starting next month your payment will double.” In the case of your dog, it’s: “Instead of kibbles you will get salmon meat now for this exercise.” 

What happens? What will you think? You will rejoice of course! Yay! More money, that’s great! I like money! I can buy my dogs more toys and new doggie beds and… 

Yeah, great, but what do you think about your job? Still the same old boring stuff, isn’t it? Yawn…

Imagine instead your boss comes to you and says: “Hey, I just wanted to tell you I am so glad to have you here. You are my best employee. I know I can rely on you. I have never had a better paper pusher in this company in my entire life. You are the best of the best and I thank you. Here is your honorary employee of the year diploma and tomorrow we will throw a party for you.” 

What do you feel now? I bet you will at least consider if this job isn’t a bit of fun after all if you are so good at it. I mean, when it comes to paper-pushing, I am the one for the job. No one comes close to me. You might not start to love your job after that. But you sure as hell will enjoy it more than if you had only gotten a raise.

Same with dogs. Giving them better treats does not lead to them loving the exercise more. Telling them they are the best dog in the world doing the best job at heeling in the history of obedience most certainly does. Praising them is like telling them, “I love what you are doing! It’s great! It brings me great joy. I think you should enjoy it too because look how happy it makes me.” You are transferring your positive emotions to your dog through praise.

Working for money vs. working for a higher purpose

Let’s have another make-believe story. Imagine you got a very high-paying job (great salmon treats – do your dogs enjoy those too? Archer would bite my hand off for one of those.) which you don’t enjoy. Maybe it’s boring or you don’t see any sense in it. 

Your boss comes to you one day and says, “Hey, I need to ask you something. We got this emergency, a deadline, we need this project done and I need you to come in on Saturday and work on it. But I can’t afford to pay for that, so will you please do it for free?” Hahahahaha! You crazy, man? For free? Do I look like I am stupid? 

Funny, isn’t it? It gets less funny when you realize this is what your dog thinks on a Saturday at the trial. “No treats? No ball? Do I look stupid to you?”

Now imagine having a low paying job (kibbles) which you love. You enjoy doing it, even though it doesn’t pay that much. People tell you that you are good at it. You see results and sense in the whole thing. 

Your boss comes and says, “I need you to work on Saturday without pay. I’m sorry, but it’s just this one Saturday. After that, you’ll get paid again normally.” 

What do you say? Maybe you will be a bit taken aback by not being paid for doing your job. But you love it. You get a commendation from your boss after you finish. And when he asks for another Saturday after 2 or 3 months, you will be willing to do it for him.

Again, this is very similar to how our dogs think about this. They know. Don’t kid yourself; you can’t trick them. They know a trial or competition means no rewards. 

But if they love their “job” and their “boss,” they will soldier through and give their best knowing you will praise them and they will get “paid” again at the next training.

Praise your dogs more, let them enjoy working with you. You will be amazed by the results. This is one of the most basic principles of my dog training system. If your dog enjoys working with you, half the work is already done. Trust me. 

Always be mindful when training your dogs and allow them to enjoy it.