May 20, 2011
My dog is so motivated to get the treats, he’s not paying attention to me… he’s desperate for the food. Am I doing something wrong?
Full Question:
I bought your marker training dvd and started doing the training a few weeks ago. I'm having trouble because Kasey is soooo motivated to get the treats, that I don't feel that he's paying enough attention to me and what I am asking him to do. He was already trained in sit, down, stay, etc. before I started marker training. So I started with tricks like wave, play dead, high 5 - he learned those quickly because they were easy and now that I am starting to use it to teach serious things like 'watch me' and 'heel', he is so desperate to get the food, that he's not really paying attention to what I'm wanting him do. Instead he gets all riled up and starts doing all the tricks he's ever learned in an attempt to get the treats! You should see him, he falls to the ground dead, rolls over, waves, does high 5, etc. all within 30 seconds! I've tried using different kinds of treats and just plain old cooked chicken (he eats raw), but it doesn't matter what I use, his focus is on that food. He also loves balls, so using toys seems to do the same thing.Any suggestions? Maybe it's me and I'm doing something wrong?
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![Cindy](https://leerburg.com/Photos/articles/authors/cindyrhodes.jpg)
That's pretty normal behavior for dogs just learning, do you have The Power of Training Dogs with Food?
It really goes in detail how to use the food and will instruct you in the proper way to hold and deliver the food for the various obedience exercises.
for dogs that are super food motivated, I may feed them a light meal first and see if that gets his drive down a little. Maybe use a kind of crappy dried treat, something lower value. either way the behavior you are seeing is normal, just don't reward him for doing something you aren't working on or he will keep on doing it.
It really goes in detail how to use the food and will instruct you in the proper way to hold and deliver the food for the various obedience exercises.
for dogs that are super food motivated, I may feed them a light meal first and see if that gets his drive down a little. Maybe use a kind of crappy dried treat, something lower value. either way the behavior you are seeing is normal, just don't reward him for doing something you aren't working on or he will keep on doing it.
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