Reward Variations

Author: Denise Partlow

Instagram: @modernk9 Carolinas

A lot of people wonder how many treats should I give my dog when I’m rewarding him?

The answer is a little bit and sometimes a lot!

What do I mean?

Well for most of our training, my dogs will typically just receive one or two pieces of their kibble-a super low value reward. However if we are doing something that’s new or challenging, I may increase the value of the reward to help with motivation, but I still only give one piece.

-Why only one?

You don’t want to waste valuable learning time with your dog chewing for too long.

However there will be times that my dog performs the task exquisitely and so in that case I might give a handful of kibble or the entire bowl of their meal. This we call a “jackpot”.

Another way that I create variations in my rewards is by mixing their kibble with other kinds of treats. Sometimes my dogs will get the kibble and sometimes they will get the higher value treats, they never know what they get it. This creates a sense of hope in my dog- that maybe this reward will be the super yummy treat. Hope is important. If my dog was getting the super yummy treat every single time we trained, that level of hope would not be there which means the level of motivation would not be there either, creating a dog who is unwilling to perform.

So mix it up in your training! Sometimes you can use a little, sometimes you can use a lot, just be careful what you are rewarding, always make good choices on which actions to reward so you can communicate clearly with your dog.

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