For some clients brand new to dog training, a phrase I hear quite often is, “Well, of course he’s doing what you’re asking him to do. You’re giving him treats!”

I always find this phrase so interesting, because it very quickly indicates to me how these clients view their dog, and behavior, in general.

Specifically, whenever I hear a client say a phrase like this, the thing that is not said, but is something that I hear loud and clear is:

“I want my dog to just do WHAT I WANT, WHEN I WANT IT, and I want him to JUST WANT TO do it.”

“What I Want”

In these moments, I often explain to my clients that the reason they are providing treats during training is to establish a communication system with their dog, so that their dog can understand WHAT THEY WANT. 

In other words, treats are used to help you COMMUNICATE what you want to your dog. Our dogs don’t come out of the womb understanding English (or the language that you use/speak), after all.

And more often than not, after a few sessions, a large majority of my clients quickly come to accept the use of treats for this specific reason.

Why, you may ask?

Because, once they think about it for a second, they come to the realization that the possible alternatives to using treats simply do not make any sense, which are:

• Doing nothing, and hoping that their dog will understand which behavior they want, by guessing

• Using punishment (which can include physically hitting the dog, but also include things like popping the leash, using intimidating speech and body language, and forcing into position), and hoping that their dog will understand which behavior they want, by doing the opposite of the behavior that resulted in the punishment

Simply put, relying on your dog to guess what you want, or to do the opposite of the behavior that resulted in punishment, are just not reliable, effective or efficient ways to communicate what you want to your dog.

Think about it this way: say that you want your child to do the dishes more often.

What do you think would be the most effective way to get him to do them more, among the choices below?

• To give him “treats” after every time he does them, which could come in the form of affection, praise, money, privileges, etc., or

• To do nothing in the hopes he reads your expectant mind and does them without prompting, or

• To ground him every time he walks by a full sink, but doesn’t do the dishes

That said, while the vast majority of my clients may understand and agree to providing treats initially for this specific purpose, many of them still want to phase out the use of treats altogether, because, for one reason or another, they just don’t want to feel like they’ll have to give their dog treats FOREVER.

“When I Want It”

So, in these moments, I often explain to them that they should continue to provide treats (albeit at a lower rate, interval and amount) long after their dog can understand them, so that their dog will be excited to do what they want, WHEN THEY WANT IT.

In other words, once communication is established, treats transform from something that is used to establish communication with them, to something that is used to MOTIVATE them.

Think about it like this: The starting salary for your current job was the treat to communicate to you what you’d get if you do what your company wants you to do, but performance-based pay raises are the treats to motivate you to continue wanting to do your job well.

in the same way, providing treats as a motivator helps you get the behavior you want from your dog more quickly and with more enthusiasm.

However, while this might make perfect sense, at least theoretically, a few dog parents still cling to the idea of wanting to phase out the use of treats altogether, eventually, but often not knowing exactly why.

“Just Want To”

At this point, it’s fairly obvious to me that these clients not only want their dog to do what they want, when they want it, but they also want their dog to JUST WANT TO do what they want, without any additional motivation.

But what does the phrase, “just want to”, really mean, if you really dig into it?

In my experience, this phrase usually means that the dog parent is largely expecting enthusiastic obedience in exchange for care.

Specifically, many dog parents feel like the LEAST their dog can do for them is to be enthusiastically obedient in exchange for ALL THE THINGS that they’ve provided their dog, namely, shelter, food, baths, grooming, love, vet care, toys, etc.

And so, when their dog is not tripping over himself to listen to them, some dog parents can feel unappreciated, unloved, and ignored in those moments.

Many human parents can identify with these feelings in those moments when they come home after a long day of work to find that their teenage children barely, if at all, noticed their arrival.

And so, when a dog trainer asks them to continue giving treats to their dog, long after they’ve “trained” their dog, it can sometimes sound like me telling them to bring home a Playstation to their teenage kids every single time they return home just to get them to clean their room.

Bribes Vs. Rewards

It’s at this point when I stress the distinction between bribes and rewards, because if some clients are still resistant to the idea of continuing to provide treats at this point, it’s usually because they feel like they are bribing their dog, which completely goes against their desire to want their dog to JUST WANT TO do what they want.

But what is bribing, exactly, and how is that different, if at all, from rewarding?

On the face of it, bribes and rewards are similar, in that they’re both used to motivate a dog to do something in return for the treat.

The key difference, however, is that bribes are things that are offered before the behavior, in order to get your dog to do what you want him to do.

Rewards, on the other hand, are things that are offered after the behavior, once your dog has already done what you want him to do.

Bribing

For example, pretend that your dog is jumping all over everyone at a dinner party at your home.  

To get your dog to stop that behavior, you might take some treats and put it right by their nose, in the hopes that they’ll be distracted enough by the treats to stop what they’re currently doing, and do whatever behavior your dog thinks you might want instead in that moment, like sit.

In this example, this is a bribe because you’re proactively offering up a treat in return for getting the behavior you want.

When dogs are routinely bribed in this way, they start to learn that acting poorly is key to getting something they want in return, as a treat suddenly, magically and regularly appears whenever they do the undesirable behavior, which in turn can perpetuate a cycle of bad behavior, namely jumping on guests every time they come to your home.

Rewards

Alternatively, when your dog is jumping all over everyone at a dinner party at your home, you might approach your dog and ask your dog to sit (assuming you’ve taught your dog to sit) instead of jumping, and once your dog sits, you then offer the treat to your dog.

In this example, this is a reward because you’re reactively offering up a treat once you get the behavior you’ve requested.

And while it’s temping to view or dismiss this distinction as mere semantics and intellectual word-play, there is a huge difference between waving a Playstation in front of your child who’s lazily laying on the couch, in the hopes that this will motivate her to finally clean her room regularly, as opposed to rewarding her with the Playstation once she’s cleaned her room for a prior agreed-upon successive period of time.

And this is exactly why I ask my clients to have treats handy, but not have them dangling those treats in front of their dogs’ face when cueing a behavior, because you want to reward them for choosing to do the behaviors you requested, voluntarily.

Final Words

As you can plainly see, there is a tremendous amount of ingrained cultural resistance to giving our dogs treats, especially after the initial training stage is over.

Did you identify with some of the reasoning above, and did it change how you view the act of giving treats to your dog, especially over a longer period of time?

Happy training!