So when they are young puppies, it seems like you have to have food with you ALL the time right? Since I only started when my last dog was middle age, it was different than a puppy seems to be.

If you are rewarding everything they do that you like, then food must be going in their mouths a LOT at this age (11 weeks)?

I got a flier in the mail today from a local dog trainer that uses a 'mystery' method to train - won't tell you till you pay him $1275 for a 5 session course at your home, or $975 at his. And it says "why would you want to always have to have food in order to get your dog to do what you want?" Hmmm, it's a little hard not to buy into that!!

At that age my pups don't have regular meal times. ALL their food is used for training.

When food isn't used as a bribe you don't have to have it with you for the dog to listen.

PM me the trainer and I can probably tell you exactly what their "secret" is. I've gotten pretty good at reading between the lines.

Food training breaks down to reward, luring and bribing.

Two legit reasons and one created by the failure to properly wean the dog off of constant treats.

It all comes down to proper use of marker training.

That's no different the proper use of correction training......or you can't go in the competition field without a leash.

Go figure!

The comment about "always have to have food" has pretty much been smashed for a number of yrs but some trainers, mostly those that are limited with what then can do will still push that nonsense.

Hi, Lori, I can understand you fully!!! I've gone through all this with my dogs. Although I had been informing myself - as I thought! - googling, googling - I learned, yes, but mostly nonsense. I even had for three months a personal trainer (Brazil) - rubbish!

I asked myself the same questions as you. I recieved my good answers through Leerburg. I go fully with Bob. Marker training is oh so important. You'll find a heap of infos about this at Leerburg. And the Webboard, always again Bob, Bob, were so helpful to me.

I've experienced, that food is an awesome motivator. But it can also lead into a wrong direction. Always having treats with us leads to bribery. We can teach a dog lots of exercises much quicker with treats, because we can more rapidly make more reps reps reps.

I also go with Cathy. When I train with food, the portion I use will be deducted from the normal portion they recieve daily. If I train two or three times, of course dependent on the length of the session, this will reduce the quantity of the "normal" meals.

I often feed the dogs only during training sessions. But I think a certain rhythm is important too.

Back to Bob: We don't want to train our dogs to obey, just when they can anticipate food. You can reward your dogs also with games. Lots of dogs react on this interaction even better than with treats. But this can not be generalized. They are all individuals.

Then may come the sometimes necessary corrections. Once the dogs know exactly what we want from them. Nothing negative, nothing near to forcing or torturing. It is a whole concept of dog training, which needs primarily to include the knowledge of dog's language,
reactions and comunication with us.

There is an incredible richness of advices here at Leerburg's. Marker training with food, toys. Engagement in general. Just go on and you'll find your way. Good luck!

 Quote: Bob Scott

That's no different the proper use of correction training......or you can't go in the competition field without a leash.

Go figure!

The comment about "always have to have food" has pretty much been smashed for a number of yrs but some trainers, mostly those that are limited with what then can do will still push that nonsense.

Yeah, once about 50 Years AGO at an Obedience Competition, the BEST in TRIAL dog (a Golden retriever with an extremely HIGH score) was having its PIX taken in the ring afterwards & the owner accidently dropped its LEASH...

That dog went Rank in wild Rebellion, ran off the field & disappeared from sight into "parts unknown" !!!

It really wasn't funny, but I heard lots of folks laughing anyway, due to human nature being what it is.

I've seen more then one "top level" competition dog that wasn't worth a dern outside that ring.

All the precision in the OB ring doesn't guarantee a well mannered dog in the house.

When it comes right down to it I'll take a good truck dog any day.

Confession time

I'm experimenting by taking my American Bulldog through Koehler method training right now and not using any food at all. She's much more relaxed and confident in her responses. I think marker training moved at a pace that she just isn't comfortable with. Too much pressure in some ways. She really needs time to just absorb the training sometimes. She's kind of an odd duck. Tonight we walked through a busy park with kids, bikes, sports teams, other dogs, etc and she walked right beside me relaxed and attentive even though she was on a 15 ft line.

Of course as we go along I'll modify a few things because she doesn't generalize as well as William Koehler expected a dog to but so far I'm really liking where her mind is with it. I was also able to find a planner a trainer wrote out. It's literally day by day for the first 5 weeks and then guides you through the next 5 weeks. We have 2 more days on the long line for a total of 6 days before switching to the 6 ft leash so it does go nice and slow which is what my girl needs.

That sounds awesome, Cathy! Congrats for having trained your dog to walk selfconfidently through all sorts of distractions. I've not reached this yet, but I'm working on it.

About food rewards: I don't know Koehler. Sounds very interesting. Do you know Ivan Balabanov? He also trains without food,though marker training but with toys. I'd like to go in this direction too. I've bought two Videos of him, "Possession Games" and "Competitive Heeling". Breathtaking to see him tugging and playing similar games with his dogs.
He has totally convinced me with his concept. He swears on INTERACTION. I fear I will have to watch the vids about 50 times, as I have no experience (yet!) and my dogs unfortunately have missed the best time to learn it. But one of them has already catched on. It's a bit exhausting, puh!, (I'm 75), but it's so fascinating.

 Quote: Christina Stockinger

. Do you know Ivan Balabanov? He also trains without food,though marker training but with toys.

Ivan's training is reward-based, primarily motivational, but is not marker training. He does not develop a verbal communication system using operant conditioning. He uses the quadrants of operant conditioning independent of one another, as many senior, balanced style trainers do. He builds consistency by classically conditioning individual behaviors through countless repetitions.

The difference is that Ivan, like most older trainers, rewards when the dog is right and withholds when the dog is wrong, but he doesn't use a mark along with the reward. He may use "good" and other soothing words as bridges, but they are not part of a structured marker system. Many accomplished trainers that have many tools in their box use parts of a marker system without subscribing to markers as a complete system of training.

I borrowed the ivan DVDs. It may be something I try later but my dogs don't have a high enough drive level to work solely for toys. I felt like his methods were extremely similar to Michael Ellis just not as well explained. I liked how his method started establishing the positions in motion from the beginning.