· By Minou Tpain
Author: Denise Partlow
Instagram: @modernk9 Carolinas
Simply put, forever. But this doesn’t mean you have to reward your dog for every move they make.
When first learning a new skill, it is important to keep the rate of reinforcement up consistently, meaning you should be rewarding almost every time. This provides your dog with the motivation to keep going with a high intensity. Once the skill becomes a conditioned response, and you are working on maintenance, then you can start to vary the rewards.
Maybe you reward after the third or fourth repetition. Sometimes it can be on the first. Switch it up so the dog never really knows when they are getting the reward. This keeps the level of hope up, motivating the dog to keep going.
Rewarding for the first attempt (once the skill is learned) could create a dog that either loses motivation to perform that skill at all or performs it without any enthusiasm. So keep rewarding your dog, don’t stop, but keep them guessing as to when they will receive it!
#dogtraining
