I have one pup who is now about 9 months old and training in French Ring. She is my first ringsport dog. Our trainer tells us NOT to use food in training for obedience because it can cause a problem with the food refusal exercise. I am used to training obedience with verbal markers and food but I have done what he says and she has her obedience routine about 50% right now. We just got a new puppy who will be training in ring and I want to use food and markers with her because I feel like it is more effective not to mention its a technique I am more familiar and experienced with. Any thoughts on this? Anyone successfully used food and markers in ring training. My opinion is that the food refusal is a different exercise. My dogs are NEVER allowed to pick up food from the ground so I can't imagine their being a problem. Any thoughts? Thanks!!!

Food refusal was the quickest and easiest thing I ever taught, and obedience for food with verbal markers was my staple training method for more than our first year. The "need" for any correction was absoloutely the lowest out of anything else.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v15/keinhaar/?action=view&current=DSCN2722-1.flv

I've seen a dog or two who get all squirmy and and tense when the food is getting chucked at them because someone is whooping his ass for looking at the food. When the marker is firmly understood, that is not neccesary.

I'm training French Ring right now as well. It depends more on the exercise. We do use food for different exercises especially starting to train the positions. It is always kept in a bait bag for quick access I started with Orijen fish kibble. My trainer told me to get better food for training like hotdogs or shredded chicken or cheese. His explanation was we are asking our dogs to do extraordinary things so we have to pay them well.

That being said I still use lots of praise in all the exercises and have moved into using more tugs and balls as a more instant reward especially in the agility part of it.

Even training the food refusal exercise we are using food, imagine that. Right now we are having my dog in a sit with a lead and fursaver on with tension on it, so she can't lower her head. When the deputy judge throws the food at her she may clack in the air at it but the tension on the lead prevents her from getting the food. She maybe interested in the thrown food but we wait until she turns and makes eye contact with me and then I pay her with food. She is now realizing that if she waits she will get paid. This training is coming along nicely. I'm with Steven it is actually very easy to train the food refusal.

Steven
That video says it all.

 Quote: Debbie Bruce

Steven
That video says it all.

Up to the part where the dog took the food!

I know the video is for descriptive purposes, though in a French Ring Trial the handler would go to au pied position (heel) and au pied (heel) the dog away from the thrown food once the judge toots his horn to complete the exercise.

Exactly my thoughts. Thanks for the input. I think I am going to use my methods for this new pup. Our trainer's methods didn't produce stellar results on the last pup and while we are still working at it, she had a lot of trouble with her obedience. New question...for the other dog, who has learned obedience on a pinch collar with verbal praise and no markers, would she respond well to marker training or do you think it would confuse her routine?

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Up to the part where the dog took the food!

The "good boy" was the mark/release.

Well all of our/my training is done with markers depends on what you mean by markers? If you are using verbal praise that is a marker .. so I'm not sure what you mean by using a marker. Do you mean clickers etc?

 Quote: geoff empey

Well all of our/my training is done with markers depends on what you mean by markers? If you are using verbal praise that is a marker .. so I'm not sure what you mean by using a marker. Do you mean clickers etc?

We use a consistent verbal cue ("YES") followed by food...

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Well all of our/my training is done with markers depends on what you mean by markers?

Operant conditioning aka secondary reinforcer. Not a verbal "bridge" to let him know he's doing well (but not done), not the reward itself, but a distinct audible cue which means:

-The exercise has been successful
-The exercise has been completed
-A high value reward shall follow

Yes, clicker training would be clearest example. My "good boy" is simply a "click". I just picked that because it came most naturally.

The value lies in the precision of a single sound or consonant marking the precise time you intend to reward. Eliminates lag time of getting treat to mouth and inadvertantly rewarding something else.