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    The Problem of Overly Food Motivated Dogs

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    The document discusses the problem of using food motivation as the sole indicator of stress levels in reactive dogs with high food drives. These dogs may continue eating even when stressed by triggers, falsely indicating to owners that the training setup is appropriate. Instead, owners should observe body language cues like tail position and muscle tension to more accurately assess stress levels. When these cues indicate a dog is approaching its threshold, the intensity of training needs to be reduced to effectively treat reactivity through counterconditioning.

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    The Problem of Overly Food Motivated Dogs

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    25 views3 pages
    The document discusses the problem of using food motivation as the sole indicator of stress levels in reactive dogs with high food drives. These dogs may continue eating even when stressed by triggers, falsely indicating to owners that the training setup is appropriate. Instead, owners should observe body language cues like tail position and muscle tension to more accurately assess stress levels. When these cues indicate a dog is approaching its threshold, the intensity of training needs to be reduced to effectively treat reactivity through counterconditioning.

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    The document discusses the problem of using food motivation as the sole indicator of stress levels in reactive dogs with high food drives. These dogs may continue eating even when stressed by triggers, falsely indicating to owners that the training setup is appropriate. Instead, owners should observe body language cues like tail position and muscle tension to more accurately assess stress levels. When these cues indicate a dog is approaching its threshold, the intensity of training needs to be reduced to effectively treat reactivity through counterconditioning.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    25 views3 pages

    The Problem of Overly Food Motivated Dogs

    Uploaded by

    Deep Copy
    The document discusses the problem of using food motivation as the sole indicator of stress levels in reactive dogs with high food drives. These dogs may continue eating even when stressed by triggers, falsely indicating to owners that the training setup is appropriate. Instead, owners should observe body language cues like tail position and muscle tension to more accurately assess stress levels. When these cues indicate a dog is approaching its threshold, the intensity of training needs to be reduced to effectively treat reactivity through counterconditioning.

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    The problem of overly food-motivated

    dogs
    Generally, working with a dog that has a high food drive is mostly easier than working with
    a dog that has a low food drive. This is because our rewards inherently have a higher value
    for the dog - thereby encouraging the dog to try extra hard and learn quickly in order to
    earn as many treats as possible.

    However, in reactivity training high food drive can become a problem unless you are very
    aware of your dog’s love for food AND his stress around triggers.

    Let’s do a thought experiment to better understand this. Imagine two very similar dogs.
    Maybe they’re littermates. They grew up in the same household, they had the same path
    towards reactivity and they have the same intensity of reactive responses to their triggers.
    The only difference between those dogs is that one has a high food drive and the other one
    does not.

    If we bring these two dogs in a counterconditioning situation, they will behave differently
    when they approach their threshold. The dog with the lower food drive will refuse treats
    once he gets too stressed. This is a sure sign for us that we have to move our dog further
    away from the trigger. Even if we do not watch the dog’s body language closely, stopping to
    eat is a very clear signal for us.
    We can move the dog with lower food drive further away from the trigger at this point, very
    effectively preventing him from crossing the threshold and keeping him in a good state of
    mind throughout the lesson.

    For the dog with high food drive, this looks different. The dog with high food drive will
    continue eating even when approaching his trigger too closely. If we are observant, we will
    notice that the eating seems more hasty, the dog is probably scarfing down his treats and
    his body language also changed. Usually, the body tension gets higher and the tail is
    carried higher. But if we do not pay close attention to these little signals, it will look to us as
    though our dog is just fine - until he finally gets pushed over the threshold and flips out.
    You see - these two nearly identical dogs took two very different routes during their
    training in our thought experiment. The one with lower food drive gave us a clear sign that
    he was approaching his threshold and we could effectively react to it.
    The one with very high food drive continued eating even while he was quite stressed, and
    that falsely made us believe he was just fine. Then he freaked out - because he was, in fact,
    not “just fine”.

    If you own a dog that loves food above everything else, you need to pay attention to his
    body language and not take his desire to eat as the only feedback on his state of mind.
    Some breeds - such as Labradors or Aussies - will always eat. They will eat when under
    intense stress, they will eat when in extreme pain, when they are incredibly happy and
    excited - their food drive is not contingent on their state of mind at all. It is just constantly
    high, all the time.

    I have seen many cases where owners of reactive dogs with high food drive actually made
    much slower progress than owners of dogs with lower food drive. Because these high food
    drive dogs were put into situations over and over that were too intense and did not build a
    positive CER.
    Whereas the owners of the less food motivated dogs were essentially forced to very closely
    examine each situation and whether the intensity was appropriate - because their dog
    would just stop eating when it was not.

    We cannot cheat our way around reactivity training by pretending a highly food motivated
    dog is in a great state of mind as long as he eats. That’s unfortunately just not true. Some
    dogs will go back and forth between barking and eating and barking and eating - those
    training setups are really not ideal. Your dog will not form a positive, calm CER if sessions
    consist of switching between flipping out and taking treats and then flipping out some
    more.

    If you are listening to this and you think “yes, that’s my dog - always ready to eat anytime,
    any place, anything” then you need to start observing other signals as a feedback to
    whether he is in a good state of mind or not.

    One good way to do this is to take note of the natural tailset of your dog. Some dogs have a
    very low tailset, such as for example Border Collies. Other dogs have a tail that’s carried
    high up.
    Know your dog’s “baseline tailset”. When your dog is sniffing in a relaxed way, this will be
    lower than when he is excited.
    As your dog is getting close to his threshold, you will see the tail start to rise. Even if your
    dog is still eating, it’s a good sign that you need to take some intensity out of the situation.
    It takes a bit of practice, but if you pay close attention you will soon be able to tell your
    dog’s mental state based on how he carries his tail.

    For dogs that have a naturally low or medium tailset, a good guideline is that the tail should
    stay below the horizontal line of the dog’s back. As soon as the tail is about as high as the
    back (so that the whole spine and tail are a straight line), the dog should be moved away
    from his trigger. However, this does not necessarily apply to all breeds. Every dog’s baseline
    tailset is different and you will need to determine what the position of your individual dog’s
    tail means.

    Another way to assess your dog’s level of stress is to look at his overall body tension and
    how high he carries his head. When dogs get close to their threshold we can usually see
    them tense up or freeze. They often raise their heads unusually high. If your dog has prick
    ears, you can see them be very erect and turned forward (whereas a sniffing dog usually
    turns the ears somewhat to the side or back). The ear set can be tricky to assess in dogs
    with floppy ears.
    But the overall body tension can be seen very well in all dogs.

    To sum it up: Overly food-motivated dogs can make us falsely believe that they are just fine
    with the training setup, when in fact they are way too stressed. Some dogs will eat
    regardless of their mental or physical state. For these dogs, we need to look at other
    factors that determine the stress level. Do not try to cheat your way around
    counterconditioning by exposing your dog to really triggering situations because he will still
    take treats. It won’t work this way.
    For very food-motivated dogs, we need to stop looking at desire to eat as a sign of how well
    we are training, and look for body language instead.

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