High Value Treats
This summer I drove to Stacy, MN twice a week for agility class. It is a bit of a drive after a 10 hour day, but I do enjoy being outside with the dogs. I spend all day inside the cube land world of "the man." So to breathe air that hasn't been recirculated is a welcome change.
I have a bag that I keep a bunch of agility stuff in so I don't have to spend too much time packing when I get home. My arrival home is usually a big swirl of action. Sometimes Kristin even pulls the other(dog) car out and puts the bag in the car for me so I can just take off as soon as I am changed. My arrival usually disrupts the entire household for the 10 minutes that I am on site - running upstairs to change, flying through the kitchen to grab/reheat something for dinner on the drive and grabbing the high value treats from the refrigerator for class.
My friend Karen was the first to explain the importance of high value treats. She used the word hot dog with her dog Hale-Bopp. I was confused because hot dogs meant anything from buddig to chicken. At first i thought she was lying to her dogs - I mean as a hot dog connoisseur I know a hot dog when I see one - and she had no hot dogs. But she kept it at the 10 thousand foot level for her dogs - was it a form of compressed animal products and by products - then it was a hot dog. I am not saying I agree that this is a hot dog - but it does work. One day we were out in her backyard and she was trying to run her Keeshound through a course and Hale-Bopp was not having it - she was busy sniffing the ground and running over to say hi to me or hi to Gromit. Karen pulled kibble out of her pocket and called Haley who did not respond and Karen got a bit flustered and said "okay, I'll be back in a minute." She went in and came out of her house. Then she smiled at Hale-Bopp and said ever so seductively - "Haley, wanna hot dog?" Haley pranced over to her and sat with her eyes focused on Karen's pocket then Karen's eyes - dancing in circles - heh heh heh - she panted - sure she wanted a hot dog - apparently it beats the kibble.
Haley ran the course and was very happy about the hot dogs and very precise about the course.
What's this, I thought, do dogs discern one food from another? I had no idea. I have often wondered why dogs got the same kibble every morning and night and were never supposed to get anything different like "people" food. I thought it could cause tummy upset. Or it might make their coat look funny. Maybe they would get bad manners if we gave them people food. I thought we were not supposed to anthropomorphize our dogs and think that they had greater pleasure for one food over another. I thought they discerned only - that dog has food and I don't or this is my food and I need it to survive. I had no idea that they actually had an opinion about what they had for food.
So I started to take notice of what Gromit and Chewie preferred - what were their high value treats. Sometimes when a dog was having trouble paying attention in class Annelise would ask what the person had for treats. One time Karen got in trouble for bringing kibble instead of hot dogs, and one time I got in trouble for having the treats that aren't Gromit's favorites - never mind that they were the expensive Solid Gold treats. It was a fun experiment that mean I could try feeding them things I had not normally fed them - Gromit would often drop vegetables on the floor when there was a meat course available - I took this to mean that vegetables were about as high value to him as they are to Kristin - something to keep you mouth busy. Chewie pretty much tried anything especially if he and Gromit were offerred the same thing at the same time Chewie always ate his first.
I was extremely happy to find out that for Gromit - sliced ham and string cheese were about the same value. In fact he even might like string cheese a little better than ham. This makes me very happy because I really hate putting the slimy ham in my pocket. At some point Kristin figured out that I was taking ham and cheese to class for Gromit and she was dismayed - "hey, those are things I like to eat," she said. We had a bit of a tete e tete about this high value treat deal. I thought I had a couple of pretty good explanations - Annelise and Karen say we should use high value treats and further more, buying cheese and ham at Costco made it less expensive than buying dog treats from Chuck-n-Don's. For some reason, she thought the fact that she had bought the first ham and cheese to take in her lunch should preclude the use of those foods in my training. Harrumph! As usually happens we arrived at a delightful compromise - I wouldn't use the meat or cheese she told me not to use and I could buy food specifically for the dogs. She still didn't like the idea of my using actual food that she would eat to train the dogs though...I didn't push the fact that she gets incredible delight out of cleaning out the refrigerator and filling up the dog dishes with the left over pot roast and roasted vegetables. In victory, pointing out a double standard does not seem the right course of action - some might consider it gloating.
So fine, I have high value treats now. This works extremely well with Gromit. I have found out that he works better for ham and cheese than he does for zukes or pupperoni. Chewie has been a different challenge - sure he likes his food. He really likes his food. He reminds us every day, twice a day when it is time for food. He knocks the food container into the wall with his nose. I am not sure why he does this because I would not say we reinforce this behavior. We regularly ignore it, in fact. Although, sometimes Kristin an I will comment that it is happening while we continue the motion of our activity. Chewie's highest value treat is actually his ball. As Annelise said - "you got a lot of dog there with that ball, if you can figure out how to use it." Use what, the dog, the ball, or was she making a comment on my ability to figure it out? Alas, I have worked rigorously on making Chewie work for his ball. Sit, stay, etc...he is a good boy. His ball still gets him very worked up - so I am still not serious about it with him. I know what his high value treat is though - and that is what my goal was for the summer.
For driving to Stacy, MN twice a week, I always stopped at Culver's on the way home from Wed night class - with car full of dogs and Karen and Shari. We shared french fries with the dogs and had shakes for ourselves. Not that I needed a high value treat to spend time with the boys.
I have a bag that I keep a bunch of agility stuff in so I don't have to spend too much time packing when I get home. My arrival home is usually a big swirl of action. Sometimes Kristin even pulls the other(dog) car out and puts the bag in the car for me so I can just take off as soon as I am changed. My arrival usually disrupts the entire household for the 10 minutes that I am on site - running upstairs to change, flying through the kitchen to grab/reheat something for dinner on the drive and grabbing the high value treats from the refrigerator for class.
My friend Karen was the first to explain the importance of high value treats. She used the word hot dog with her dog Hale-Bopp. I was confused because hot dogs meant anything from buddig to chicken. At first i thought she was lying to her dogs - I mean as a hot dog connoisseur I know a hot dog when I see one - and she had no hot dogs. But she kept it at the 10 thousand foot level for her dogs - was it a form of compressed animal products and by products - then it was a hot dog. I am not saying I agree that this is a hot dog - but it does work. One day we were out in her backyard and she was trying to run her Keeshound through a course and Hale-Bopp was not having it - she was busy sniffing the ground and running over to say hi to me or hi to Gromit. Karen pulled kibble out of her pocket and called Haley who did not respond and Karen got a bit flustered and said "okay, I'll be back in a minute." She went in and came out of her house. Then she smiled at Hale-Bopp and said ever so seductively - "Haley, wanna hot dog?" Haley pranced over to her and sat with her eyes focused on Karen's pocket then Karen's eyes - dancing in circles - heh heh heh - she panted - sure she wanted a hot dog - apparently it beats the kibble.
Haley ran the course and was very happy about the hot dogs and very precise about the course.
What's this, I thought, do dogs discern one food from another? I had no idea. I have often wondered why dogs got the same kibble every morning and night and were never supposed to get anything different like "people" food. I thought it could cause tummy upset. Or it might make their coat look funny. Maybe they would get bad manners if we gave them people food. I thought we were not supposed to anthropomorphize our dogs and think that they had greater pleasure for one food over another. I thought they discerned only - that dog has food and I don't or this is my food and I need it to survive. I had no idea that they actually had an opinion about what they had for food.
So I started to take notice of what Gromit and Chewie preferred - what were their high value treats. Sometimes when a dog was having trouble paying attention in class Annelise would ask what the person had for treats. One time Karen got in trouble for bringing kibble instead of hot dogs, and one time I got in trouble for having the treats that aren't Gromit's favorites - never mind that they were the expensive Solid Gold treats. It was a fun experiment that mean I could try feeding them things I had not normally fed them - Gromit would often drop vegetables on the floor when there was a meat course available - I took this to mean that vegetables were about as high value to him as they are to Kristin - something to keep you mouth busy. Chewie pretty much tried anything especially if he and Gromit were offerred the same thing at the same time Chewie always ate his first.
I was extremely happy to find out that for Gromit - sliced ham and string cheese were about the same value. In fact he even might like string cheese a little better than ham. This makes me very happy because I really hate putting the slimy ham in my pocket. At some point Kristin figured out that I was taking ham and cheese to class for Gromit and she was dismayed - "hey, those are things I like to eat," she said. We had a bit of a tete e tete about this high value treat deal. I thought I had a couple of pretty good explanations - Annelise and Karen say we should use high value treats and further more, buying cheese and ham at Costco made it less expensive than buying dog treats from Chuck-n-Don's. For some reason, she thought the fact that she had bought the first ham and cheese to take in her lunch should preclude the use of those foods in my training. Harrumph! As usually happens we arrived at a delightful compromise - I wouldn't use the meat or cheese she told me not to use and I could buy food specifically for the dogs. She still didn't like the idea of my using actual food that she would eat to train the dogs though...I didn't push the fact that she gets incredible delight out of cleaning out the refrigerator and filling up the dog dishes with the left over pot roast and roasted vegetables. In victory, pointing out a double standard does not seem the right course of action - some might consider it gloating.
So fine, I have high value treats now. This works extremely well with Gromit. I have found out that he works better for ham and cheese than he does for zukes or pupperoni. Chewie has been a different challenge - sure he likes his food. He really likes his food. He reminds us every day, twice a day when it is time for food. He knocks the food container into the wall with his nose. I am not sure why he does this because I would not say we reinforce this behavior. We regularly ignore it, in fact. Although, sometimes Kristin an I will comment that it is happening while we continue the motion of our activity. Chewie's highest value treat is actually his ball. As Annelise said - "you got a lot of dog there with that ball, if you can figure out how to use it." Use what, the dog, the ball, or was she making a comment on my ability to figure it out? Alas, I have worked rigorously on making Chewie work for his ball. Sit, stay, etc...he is a good boy. His ball still gets him very worked up - so I am still not serious about it with him. I know what his high value treat is though - and that is what my goal was for the summer.
For driving to Stacy, MN twice a week, I always stopped at Culver's on the way home from Wed night class - with car full of dogs and Karen and Shari. We shared french fries with the dogs and had shakes for ourselves. Not that I needed a high value treat to spend time with the boys.
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