# R+ Training: Using the highest reinforcement



## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

I love this. Found it via "Recommended Videos" on youtube. You could give this dog tons of corrections for being crazy. Or- you can use your brain to find the highest reinforcement in the environment (not hard in this case) and use that reinforcement to your advantage. Positive training at its best. Great video:


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## t.lesniak (Jan 4, 2010)

Yeah I get it. 
But, I can work my male around a female in heat and I dont have to allow him to run over and molest her as a reward.


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## sheep (Dec 2, 2011)

I can get the rewarding part, but it seems a bit stressing for the male dog. In the end, he seemed calmer (after exercising a bit?), but even so he was still alert (restlessness).


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

sheep said:


> I can get the rewarding part, but it seems a bit stressing for the male dog. In the end, he seemed calmer (after exercising a bit?), but even so he was still alert (restlessness).


That was addressed in the comments:
GoneToTheeDogs:
2:38 doesn't seemed relaxed at all....just not as fidgitiy. Still gungho﻿ about getting to the bitch. Still craziness on the inside. Can't call that relaxed in the least. You can still see the dog on the edge waiting for the release.

klickerklok:
Absolutely. That's why I wrote "more relaxed". Training is not done after just a day, and it's also not likely that the dog will be sleepy-relaxed in a training setting right after seeing a bitch in heat. He did sleep well in﻿ the house with the bitches around though.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

The lesson is that the dog must learn to work through stress. This is appropriately taught through positive reinforcement without having to correct the bejesus out of the dog. Threads about compulsion vs positive reinforcement all go the same place: with the same people asking directly how one would deal with such a problem. This video demonstrates exactly how a smart R+ trainer would deal with the problem. They find a solution by controlling the reinforcement.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

I don't get GoneToTheDogs' comment. Do we *want* dogs to be relaxed during agility? I don't! " You can still see the dog on the edge waiting for the release." Perfect!

I was having trouble with Pan at flyball getting so loaded up. Our problem was that the activity itself is so rewarding for him. I can't take a reward and then use that to maintain control because all he really wants to do is do flyball (the reward tug is really there to control him at the end and give the handler a chance to grab him before he starts running again). It will be interesting to see Jason fix this, being an infinitely better trainer than I he probably has already, lol. Sometimes the best thing for Pan was just waiting him out. Having him come in, watch other dogs warm up and run first, and literally lie on top of him (in a down) until he quit howling and was still very intense and focused but not in such a frantic way that he risked hurting himself. I'm not against corrections but in many cases with my dogs corrections only load the dog higher and that was usually the case here (though it was so hard not to yell at him and correct him for being so insane!).


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## sheep (Dec 2, 2011)

wildo said:


> The lesson is that the dog must learn to work through stress. This is appropriately taught through positive reinforcement without having to correct the bejesus out of the dog. Threads about compulsion vs positive reinforcement all go the same place: with the same people asking directly how one would deal with such a problem. This video demonstrates exactly how a smart R+ trainer would deal with the problem. They find a solution by controlling the reinforcement.


You mean the point of this is to show how one can redirect the stress energy? To show how we can do it when dealing with stressful dogs? (otherwise I hope that this is not used as another form of motivator for training, I mean the excited energy from the motivation is different from using hormones or toys/treats/plays)


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

So in this video they use the possibility of sex as a reward? Why would you "torture" a dog like that? What happened at the very end of the video when he couldn't control his hormones any longer and started air humping? Is that why the camera stopped? By thwe way, the collie was not calm at all; he just modified his behavior to get to breed the dog.
I would have asked the owner of the female in heat to leave with her dog. There are plenty other situations to work your dog through to teach him focus.
Try to ask a young man to solve some math problems in the presence of an "available beauty".


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

Read the youtube comments- bitches in heat are allowed to train at that facility. As such, the dog must learn to work around that distraction.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

wildo said:


> Read the youtube comments- bitches in heat are allowed to train at that facility. As such, the dog must learn to work around that distraction.


I know but it was only my personal opinion. Personally I would not use a female in heat to "reward" WD. I would try keep his focus on me at all times by increasing the distance or leave myself. If they need to work in the presence of these distractions they have to learn to ignore them.
The collie has excellent impulse control but not focus on the owner in this situation, otherwise why would (s)he need a leash for him?


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## sheep (Dec 2, 2011)

wildo said:


> Read the youtube comments- bitches in heat are allowed to train at that facility. As such, the dog must learn to work around that distraction.


So it is about showing how to help the dog to canalize the stress/energy?

But to let a dog build up so much stress is a bit... well... personally I would prefer not to, if not necessary.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

No, I don't think it's particularly about providing an outlet for the stress. Really, in my opinion- at least what I got out of it- is that this is a prime example of NILIF. The dog wants to go see the bitch in heat. In order to get that, he has to do work for the owner, and then he _might_ get the opportunity. It's about manipulating access to reinforcement in order to gain the result your looking for. The dog learns he cannot just take whatever he wants. He has to earn it.


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## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

I would be interested to have seen a video prior to this, but I personally just could never get behind this kind of training because although that is a VERY calm accomodating female, I think allowing the behavior of the male towards the female as his reward is totally inappropriate.

I think they cut out at the end with the air humping because the dog is not relaxed (and I agree you don't want him relaxed for training purposes) but he is not in as much control as they are trying to say he is, IMHO. I understand you can't accomplish much in a few minutes, but I just don't see anything at all being accomplished here in the video at all, which is why I'd be curious to see a few minutes of the same type of training, with a TOY reward vs using the female. They used the toy, he responded to it, so honestly what I was taking from it is they are using the female as an outlet when he's too unfocused and amped up. I don't consider that training. I consider that they can't keep him focused other ways, so when he's too unfocused they allow him to behave inappropriately towards the female, who is a saint for putting up with that.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

Fanny Gott is a _highly_ successful dog trainer competing in FCI World championship agility and obedience events. I'd like to think she knows a little something about dog training. This dog is obviously very interested in the female- yet he continues to work through his agility training. I'm sure not every dog could accomplish the same. It's a foundation of NILIF and positive reinforcement training that allows this to happen. I don't think the dog is being rewarded for lack of focus, that doesn't make any sense from a training perspective. The dog did his job (nose target on the plank, in this case) and is allowed a high value reward.

But really, I do agree that people will see what they want to see- myself included. I think it's a great example of NILIF and in my opinion it shows an owner working through an issue without correcting the crap out of her dog.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

wildo said:


> No, I don't think it's particularly about providing an outlet for the stress. Really, in my opinion- at least what I got out of it- is that this is a prime example of NILIF. The dog wants to go see the bitch in heat. In order to get that, he has to do work for the owner, and then he _might_ get the opportunity. It's about manipulating access to reinforcement in order to gain the result your looking for. The dog learns he cannot just take whatever he wants. He has to earn it.


IMHO the only thing he "earns" is more stress while a mating would be what he is after.
In the NILIF techniques dogs do get what they want. I am still curious what the video would have shown after the end when the dog stated to air hump.
OK, over and out for me on this discussion. It was an interesting concept.
I stick to the clicker and treats and play for rewards.


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## t.lesniak (Jan 4, 2010)

Wolfy Dog wrote "IMHO the only thing he "earns" is more stress while a mating would be what he is after."

That's exactly what I thought . Then I thought, "is there more going on that was edited out of the video?" Then the whole idea kinda grossed me out. 
Not a suitable "reward". Even if it did work. I dont see that it did.


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## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

wildo said:


> Fanny Gott is a _highly_ successful dog trainer competing in FCI World championship agility and obedience events. I'd like to think she knows a little something about dog training. This dog is obviously very interested in the female- yet he continues to work through his agility training. I'm sure not every dog could accomplish the same. It's a foundation of NILIF and positive reinforcement training that allows this to happen. I don't think the dog is being rewarded for lack of focus, that doesn't make any sense from a training perspective. The dog did his job (nose target on the plank, in this case) and is allowed a high value reward.
> 
> But really, I do agree that people will see what they want to see- myself included. I think it's a great example of NILIF and in my opinion it shows an owner working through an issue without correcting the crap out of her dog.


Personally I could care less what certifications she has, my comment was in regards to this dog in this situation using this training manner.

No where did I say or imply she should correct the crap out of him. I simply said he seemed to be happily rewarded with the ball tug toy, and I would be curious to see the difference with a normal reward vs allowing him to behave so inappropriately towards another members dog as a release. I don't see it as a reward. Everytime he loses focus, he is rewarded by running to the female and going nuts.

Clearly, the ball.tug reward worked as he went back to doing the exact same exercise he did before/after wanting to mount the female. So I would be curious to see several minutes of honest video of that training/reward method to see why it wasn't working. I really see no progress from beginning to end of the video, in fact, he's only getting more amped up for the female after the few minutes of video, which is IMHO why they cut the video when he started air humping. I'll bet he attempted to mount her shortly thereafter, which was edited out.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

I think you guys would be sorely disappointed with the "edited out" content. I bet you it is nothing more than a leash getting tight and the dog walking away. Highly doubt there was any humping ([edit]- doubt there was any _breeding_, that is- yes, there was air humping) happening there.


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## t.lesniak (Jan 4, 2010)

The dogs I train have a few positive reinforcers. But 98% of the time it is a good ole ball-on-a-rope. When I give my physical and verbal cues that its time to "work" (Ob train), the dog knows there is a reward involved. It comes from me. And it's in their best interest to join in the game. Sniffing is not allowed whether it is the ground another dog or whatever. 
I have never had to "correct the crap out of" nor "correct the bejesus out of" any dogs to get them to focus on the work.
It's all in the foundation. Which I would say,the Border Collie featured, is lacking.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

Again, the point of the video is how one R+ trainer dealt with a problem behavior. From her blog (which was linked in the video description):



> Having three girls in heat in the house can be a challenge with three intact males. *This is the first time that I have noticed that Epic really found girls interesting*, and a new world seemed to open for him. Instead of trying to survive these days, we’re making the most out of this high value reward. Bitches in heat will be allowed in Swedish agility trials from this year, so it’s good to be prepared.


It's really great that you guys have dogs that are able to work next to a bitch in heat without going crazy. Apparently this trainer wasn't so "lucky" with her dog, and some training was required. Certainly there are things that distract your dogs, and you've had to use one method or another to teach the dog to leave it and work through it.

This trainer employed a method of "if you do what I want, you might get what you want." This is no different than rewarding with treats, ball, praise, etc. In fact- as the text in the video directly states, value was built for the nose target because a higher than normal reward was paired with the activity.

Regardless of how you feel about using a bitch in season as a reward, this is simple psychology. Pair a higher reward with a behavior, and the behavior will be more likely reproduced. This is the Premake Principle in action.

(And it doesn't really matter if you can't see the dog is performing the work more enthusiastically or not- I promise that the world-level trainer is quite aware of if her dog is more enthusiastically performing or not. I doubt she's just lucky enough to _happen_ to get to that level of competition without such skill.)


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## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

wildo said:


> I think you guys would be sorely disappointed with the "edited out" content. I bet you it is nothing more than a leash getting tight and the dog walking away. Highly doubt there was any humping ([edit]- doubt there was any _breeding_, that is- yes, there was air humping) happening there.


Perhaps you misread my last sentence. I said *attempted to mount.*


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

You're not the only one to comment in this thread, Rerun. Others were talking about mounting and the possibility of sex as a reward, as well as speculating on why the camera had to be shut off.


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## qbchottu (Jul 10, 2011)

Have not read the rest - forgive me if it was answered before, but how is the female the "reward" when the male was not allowed to breed her? Is that a true reward? 

Here's an interesting post that I was reminded of when considering this:
http://www.germanshepherds.com/foru...y-exercise-their-dog-rc-cars.html#post2637815


JeanKBBMMMAAN said:


> If the dog can catch it and shake it, smoosh it, or slobber on it, I'd say fine.* If not, kind of like a laser pointer in that there is no reward at the end.*


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

I'd think smelling it is pretty tangible. Especially in a species so adapt at using their nose. I think that the first time he was released to the female, he dived in from the front for a big sniff.


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## qbchottu (Jul 10, 2011)

Sure but smelling is not reward. My dog can smell the treat in my hand, but if I do not ever let her have it for performing her work, then it is not a reward. It is only a lure or bait that the dog will never get to win.

Let me use this example: we sometimes use one dog that is quite good at smelling females in standing heat. He always seems to know when the bitch is ready. We will sometimes have him out to sniff the girls, see if they are ready and then attempt a breeding. He will smell, and if interested he will try to mount and flirt. But that male will be taken away and the actual male used for stud will be brought out and bred to the female. The first male did not get any reward. His reward went to the next guy


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

qbchottu said:


> Sure but smelling is not reward. My dog can smell the treat in my hand, *but if I do not ever let her have it for performing her work*, then it is not a reward. It is only a lure or bait that the dog will never get to win.


...except in this case the dog _did_ get to win.  I'm not sure I'm following you.


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## qbchottu (Jul 10, 2011)

The male was allowed to breed the female they tempted him with?


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

qbchottu said:


> Let me use this example: we sometimes use one dog that is quite good at smelling females in standing heat. He always seems to know when the bitch is ready. We will sometimes have him out to sniff the girls, see if they are ready and then attempt a breeding. He will smell, and if interested he will try to mount and flirt. But that male will be taken away and the actual male used for stud will be brought out and bred to the female. The first male did not get any reward. His reward went to the next guy


Sure, valid example. Hopefully you give him a nice tasty treat or a tug or something.  In your example, the "sniff" wasn't the reward, something else [which you didn't mention] was. In this video, the sniff was the reward.


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## qbchottu (Jul 10, 2011)

How can sniffing be a reward? Smelling, flirting, play bowing, chasing each other...that is foreplay, not reward. Reward is to breed. If my dog smells the treats in my bag all during training, I tempt the dog the whole time, but the dog never gets a taste - that is not rewarding.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

qbchottu said:


> The male was allowed to breed the female they tempted him with?


Ok- I see where you're going with this. With the treat example, your saying he can smell it, but he doesn't get to eat it. So in that case, the eating was the reward and it was withheld.

Which, I believe, you're saying is analogous to the dog in the video getting to smell the bitch, but not breed with her- thus reward was withheld. Am I understanding you correctly now?

I'm not a dog, so I can't comment from the dog's brain. Also, I've never bred dogs, so I can't comment from experience. Even so, I suspect that most dogs do quite enjoy the smell of a bitch in heat. That's pretty foreign to humans- certainly foreign to me. But if it works for the dog, I don't see why it can't be used as a reward. It's tangible to the dog, even if it's not tangible to me.


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## qbchottu (Jul 10, 2011)

He is not playing and he is not considering the smell the reward. If you look at the female, you see her standing nicely and she is flagging quite a bit as well. She is ready and welcoming him. He is excited, concentrating on her, play bowing, excited, primed and ready to breed her. The smell is not the reward. It is the lure to get him to concentrate, but he does not ever get the reward. True reward in this case is to breed the female. Otherwise, why don't all trainers bottle up some "doggie love scent" and use it to train all their competition males? (speaking of - this might actually be a good money making scheme!) I would not feel right about doing this type of "reward" training. It is fine to use females in heat to proof or add distractions *after* training is completed sufficiently. But this is not reward to me. It is an unfair lure - a proverbial laser pointer.


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## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

Scent is actually not foreign to humans at all, it's a natural physical response for humans as well, but since this is a family friendly forum perhaps it's best not to get into the details.

There are a few issues here that people are disagreeing on. you think it's ok to use a bitch in heat as the reward, some of us don't. I don't have a problem at all with positive training, but I do think it's wrong to expect the female to put up with that behavior. They are very lucky they have such a patient calm female, because not all would put up with that - even in heat. I personally don't agree with using another dog as the reward, regardless of the reasons. The dog responded fine with the ball/tug toy, and was still working great, excited to do the contact exercise again, and then they used the other dog. I really don't see a reward occuring at all. When the dog loses focus, the handler let him run over to the female as an outlet. 

The dog certainly isn't going to be able to do this in a show, so I really don't see why they would bother using this as the reward for performance, what do they expect to happen when he's off lead and a dog in heat is around at the show? Without that leash on, it doesn't look like there is a lot of control occuring around that female. You have to start somewhere of course, but this doesn't seem like a situation where the dog is going to improve if they keep allowing him to run over to her. Seems like the point of redirection would be to redirect his focus back on the handler, not keep not allowing him to focus on the female. Even during the contact exercise, they had the female parked in front of him and he could see her and just run straight to her. His focus was not on the handler or exercise. It was on the dog in heat in front of him.


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## JeanKBBMMMAAN (May 11, 2005)

Yes. 

Just because you CAN use/do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD.


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## G-burg (Nov 10, 2002)

I'm just amazed at what people make videos of...  

I don't agree with what's being done either.. but then again, I'm not a great dog trainer!!


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## ShatteringGlass (Jun 1, 2006)

I'll stick to food, toys and praise...


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## codmaster (Aug 5, 2009)

Heh! Heh!


Interesting approach!


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## GSDElsa (Jul 22, 2009)

IMO this should be "Postitive Reinforcement at it's Worst."

Oy vey.


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## KristiM (Oct 18, 2011)

I can see both sides of the argument here. I however DO think what she did worked out successfully for THAT particular dog just because of the fact that he went from absolutely no interest in his toy to being able to play with it as a reward. This scenario I think could be considered a relative success, but what happens if there is a female at a show that he can't sniff because she will rip his face off (or the owner won't allow it.) You obviously would have to train and prepare for those situations, using whatever worked for you and your dog.


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## dOg (Jan 23, 2006)

Seems like trying to make lemonade out of lemons to me. Interesting what we'll do when the conditions present themselves. He was loading out of control and this did internalize it, so it was making the best of a silly situation, at best.


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## Jack's Dad (Jun 7, 2011)

I think it's kinda sick.


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## Liesje (Mar 4, 2007)

I kind of "get" it in theory, but in reality....if my dog struggled that much to focus because of a bitch in heat I'd probably just ask the person to back up a bit. Part of dog training is knowing when to pick your battles! Also I don't agree that the dog gets to choose the reinforcement. I'm often working my dogs with reinforcers that might not be the absolutely most desirable thing for them. Really by definition a reinforcer is *anything* that helps make the desired behavior happen, so it either works or it doesn't, there doesn't have to be a full spectrum of how reinforcing something is. I often train with kibble when I have dog treats available, or throw a stick instead of getting out a Gappay ball. In flyball I'm in the process of forcing Nikon to change the reward. The most rewarding thing for him is no longer practical in that context.


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