Hi, pup is now 15 weeks old and we have been trying to take him on short walks only but he really is stubborn and scared if anyone walks past he cowers ir hides in gate ways apart from us keep bending down with treats he wont budge! He is very obsessed by treat rewards and i already have a greedy adult dog. That only loves for food i dont want another any advice would be welcome.

Thanks

He isn't being stubborn, he's being a puppy, who will be naturally apprehensive of the outside world.

Have you done any training at home to teach him walking with you is fun & rewarding? My puppies & older rescue dogs are all trained at home off lead, before they go for any outside walking. I use tiny very high value treats to lure the dog to me & start by taking a couple steps, then reward with treats & a bit of playing, always ending with a slightly longer play session. My sessions last no more than 5-10 minutes depending on the dog's age.

Instead of walking on the streets, I used to drive to where there are public benches & sit with my puppy on my knee or next to me on a blanket/vet bed & as people/& dogs pass by rewarding the puppy for just watching & not reacting. Patience is needed to introduce a puppy to the noise, distractions etc that occur outside your home. No need to rush a puppy into street walking.

He is very obsessed by treat rewards and i already have a greedy adult dog. That only loves for food i dont want another any advice would be welcome.

Why would you not want the easiest way to reward a dog? A food motivated dog is an easy to train dog. Dogs get close to you when you form a close bond with them and they trust you.  Food is at the very basics of animal instinct for survival so we use treats as rewards. If you feel that your adult dog only loves you because of the food you give, then I suspect that you either do not read your dog very well, or you don't have a good bond -and if not, why not?

Your puppy is scared of the big world, and the treats are very clearly helping him to trust you. Use this, but take it slowly. The fact that he will actually accept treats when scared means that they are doing their job and he is not TOO scared (a really scared dog will refuse food) but you need to slow down and not expect too much too soon -see the reply from Ann R Smith.

As well as the good advice that has been given above. I’d like to add that people, including myself, offered advice to you in a previous post saying you could (and should) be taking pup out in your arms. The reason people carry pups out in their arms for the first few weeks is specifically for this reason, so that the pup can get used to traffic and people and all sorts going past before it’s had it’s jabs.

Especially as you’re starting late in the exposure treats will work the best for him as most pups are very food motivated. I’d go out when he’s due a meal and use his meal as ‘treats’ and reward him in the way ann suggests. If you then really wanted to when the pup is older you can phase the food out and replace with something else - if you positively encourage play and tug then a toy is a great replacement
In my eyes a food motivated ‘greedy’ dog, is better than a petrified puppy that turns in to a reactive dog.

greedy is a gift!  My previous dog was not interested in food treats and believe me that makes training far far harder

My last puppy was a 4.5 month old from rescue. I spent a fortnight with him on our nearest supermarket car park - with a pocketful of treats. At first we stood back and just watched the comings and goings from a distance, then moved closer to the areas where there were more people and traffic. He did get a little attention from the shoppers, but most just went about their business and left us alone. A bonus is that areas like this are free from other dogs, so there is less chance of infection or having a, 'dog in your face'.

> he really is stubborn and scared if anyone walks past he cowers ir hides in gate ways

It can take ages to walk even 10 feet with a baby puppy, mine have all been quite confident but still a lead and collar is a new thing, being outside the garden is new, it's natural for them to just plonk their bottoms down and watch everything around them.

Bend down to his height and use a high, excited voice and tiny but really yummy treats to lure him forward a step or two and repeat.

I usually carry a baby puppy a few feet away from my garden and work on getting them to walk home, rather than walk away from home. This stage is over so quickly, pretty soon he'll want to be out adventuring so work on nice loose lead walking from the start. Once you've got him moving forward give him lots of praise and keep dropping tiny treats right in front of him while he's by your side.

It's great to have a dog obsessed by food, it makes training so much easier, use it.

Remember that puppies can't walk very far anyway, their growing bones are not strong enough and you can do permanent damage with over exercise at this stage. The general rule is 5 minutes exercise per month of life, so just 15 minutes just now and when he's 4 months old he can do 20 minutes. This time doesn't include free running of his own choosing if you are just standing/sitting in one spot, so playing in the garden or running about in the park while you stand still doesn't count.

I hear SO many people complaining that their dog isn’t food motivated so it’s hard to train*. As others have said, a dog that loves food is a GOOD thing, because food is an easy reward, and a dog that’s in the “food zone” is in a good head space for learning.

Honestly if my sensitive and fear reactive papillon didn’t adore food, he’d be in a much much worse state.

I think a lot of owners have the attitude that their dogs should perform behaviours just for love of the human, or because they “should do what they’re told”. But would you do your job if you didn’t get paid? I bet most people wouldn’t do it just for the love of their boss, especially if they’ve only known them for 7 weeks or so! I pay River well for behaviour I like, and it shows in his drive to work for me and the joy he has for training. And that directly impacts our relationship, I’m fun to be around so he wants to be with me.

*All animals as is are food motivated to a greater or lesser extent, or they’d starve to death. What’s happening with these dogs is the food isn’t high value enough, or the dog doesn’t know the behaviour well enough, or the human isn’t communicating clearly, or the environment is too distracting, or the dog’s scared or frustrated or in pain or tired, or whatever.

Carrying with my baby Bassets wasn't on the agenda (size/weight) but for the first stages, assuming they were 'used' to wearing their collars and coming with me on a lead (sort of) ahead of leaving their property, I'd simply take them to the kerb so they could get used to the sights and sounds of the 'big world'.  Happily when we lived in a small hamlet, that meant just the occasional passing car and other than my neighbour and her dogs (I timed it so she'd gone out with them already, or had come home first) no dogs around.   And we could wander up the lane too.  Those we kept were normally full of curiosity re scents so moving forward (or sideways) was never an issue.

This is def. a 'don't run before you/they can walk' situation.

Many years ago I had a GSD puppy who was scared of traffic. She found squeaky toys high value. Where I was walking her was a wide footpath with a wide grass verge. In those days the amount of traffic there was nowhere near today's levels. I used to walk her during quiet times and every time I saw a car coming we had a game with the squeaky toy. One day she had the toy in her mouth already when another car passed so she squeaked it. After that, for a long time, she confidently carried the toy on our walks and squeaked it every time a car went past

I did take the previous advice and take pup everywhere in my arms, i was just concerned with the phasing out of treats he might not listen as my older dog did this and just for the info it wasnt me who trained my older dog. As he moved in with my daughter long time after puppy hood. While i reslly appreciate the advice on champdogs sometimes it feels like people cant wait to shout you down!

Thanks for the help :)

I don't completely stop using treats at any time in my dog life.
Less than when training a new activity but they never go completely
I've always thought as silverleaf does food or whatever your dog really enjoys is payment for a job well done.
Just watch any of the programmes with police etc the dogs are always rewarded with a favourite toy or something on completion of an activity

Phasing out if treats for certain things can be done but not until they are much much older into puppyhood.
I still use treats for mine when I'm asking them to do certain commands, less so as adults but they still often get something during the day. I ask them to sit and maybe as adults they will get a treat twice in 10 sits.
Baby puppies generally get a treat every time to implant on what they are doing, reward each and every time until they really know the command.

> i was just concerned with the phasing out of treats he might not listen

My dogs are 13, 10 and 8 years old and they still get treats for being good dogs

I never stop rewarding either.  It might not always need to be a food reward as pup goes (always is with mine, though) but dogs are intrinsically reward-driven, and the environment around them will never stop offering rewarding things.  So I continue to pay for them doing as I ask!

I’m wondering if one reason why so many people feel compelled to stop using rewards is because of a common misapplication of psychology.

I expect most of us know about how a variable reward schedule will keep people pumping money into a slot machine once they start, because they never know when the payout will come. They keep putting in more coins because who knows, the next one might just win the jackpot! And so they spend far more than they maybe meant to.

Variable reward schedules basically create a behaviour that’s very resistant to extinction. If the fruit machine never paid out you’d soon stop playing, but if it pays unpredictably you’ll carry on for much longer before you give up.

I don’t think this is all that relevant when we’re teaching a dog to do something though. It just muddies the water when we’re trying to communicate to a dog that we like what they’re doing, but we don’t always reward. If you’ve got a particularly intelligent dog they might decide it isn’t worth the bother, or they might start to make connections that aren’t really there. Skinner did an experiment with I think pigeons, basically rewarding them entirely randomly regardless of behaviour. They ended up with strange “superstitious” behaviours because if they say did a head nod just before the food reward arrived, they started thinking it was the nod that caused the reward when actually it was coming anyway - so they kept doing it even though it made no difference to the reward schedule at all. Of course if they continually offered head nods they’d keep accidentally coinciding with the reward and it would strengthen that connection.

So maybe an intelligent dog (who isn’t 100% proofed on sit yet) is going to try to figure out why sit #1 was good enough but sit #2 wasn’t, and come to the conclusion that maybe it’s because they turned their head to the side the first time, and then you’ve got a dog that turns its head every time it sits, just like a human that wears their lucky underpants to every football game because clearly that’s what causes their team to win!

Obviously I’m not talking about shaping here, where you progress to rewarding closer and closer approximations towards the goal behaviour. Or if you give a jackpot reward for a particularly fast sit, or a recall from something tempting, or whatever. I’ve used shaping with River since he was 10 weeks old and he understands perfectly that I will ask him to change his behaviour as we train, and that if I withhold a reward it’s because that particular behaviour wasn’t right and that he needs to figure out how to change it. But he’s very intelligent and has 2 years of experience with this kind of training. He’d be extremely confused if I just arbitrarily skipped a reward for no reason when he was sitting perfectly.

We still reward a good recall with our 8 year old dog as it’s jointly a reward for the snappy recall and a reminder for still having a good recall
We let her know when we are carrying the yummy treats (fish cubes) it really keeps her alert to us even if there are really good trails to follow

Why would you want to phase out treats?

Would you go to work if your employer decided to phase out your money?

I don't think so...

> While i reslly appreciate the advice on champdogs sometimes it feels like people cant wait to shout you down!

I've given up offering you advice after how you responded the last time I gave any.

Silverleaf had it in a nutshell. If the fruit machine never paid out, how long would you continue to play on it?

> I don’t think this is all that relevant when we’re teaching a dog to do something though. It just muddies the water when we’re trying to communicate to a dog that we like what they’re doing, but we don’t always reward.

Fully agree.  And the effectiveness of a variable reward schedule when dealing with an intelligent, independent animal in "wild" situations with alternative reinforcements on offer (playing with other dogs, other humans, smells, other animals etc vs. fruit machine or... I don't know, beer?) has been questioned.

Personally, I find it is not as effective as a reliable reward schedule for the harder behaviours.  So for a recall for example, where I'm asking my dogs to come away from an alternative reinforcer, 9 times out of 10, my guys will get rewarded.  When they don't it's because they've either not gone anywhere in the first place (they do try it on for extras!), or they've only just recalled and have just popped back to see if there's anything still going.

For other behaviours, whether I reward consistently or not really depends on what it is.  For general stuff like moving in and out of a room, walking nicely on a lead when they've had a lot of practice, etc I don't reward constantly but I don't tail those rewards off until that behaviour is well and truly established and default for the situational.  So the dog is doing it automatically, not for the possibility of food.  And I'll increase the duration gradually so the rewards naturally disappear and aren't expected.

> So for a recall for example, where I'm asking my dogs to come away from an alternative reinforcer, 9 times out of 10, my guys will get rewarded.

Pretty much same here, I probably reward a bit more often than you because I also reward automatic check-ins, my River loves dogs so much that they are very rewarding to him so any time he can focus on me if there’s another dog around I pay him for it even if he hasn’t moved very far away from me.

I think recall is far too important a skill to fade out the rewards, ever. As you say, there are so many other things out there that dogs find reinforcing and so it’s very helpful for them to know that it’s worth coming back every single time.

The one that bothers me is when you see someone out with a dog and literally the only time they recall is when it’s time to put the lead on again to go home. No reward, just loss of freedom and the end of the walk. I’m honestly very surprised that dog ever comes back at all, because what’s in it for them?

> I’m honestly very surprised that dog ever comes back at all, because what’s in it for them?

I think only the very biddable breeds tolerate this. With hounds I reward every time but also with youngsters I try never to call them to put their lead on, so I'll call them and make a big fuss and give a tasty treat and then send them off to play again and at the end of the walk I'll try and just casually leash them up while they're sniffing. Except in an emergency I never call them to end the fun.

> <br />The one that bothers me is when you see someone out with a dog and literally the only time they recall is when it’s time to put the lead on again to go home. No reward, just loss of freedom and the end of the walk. I’m honestly very surprised that dog ever comes back at all, because what’s in it for them?

Interesting that comment.  When towards the end of a walk, unseen by me as they were in a ditch, my lot flushed a herd of deer.  I managed to stop all but the youngest who, at 9 months, took off after them in full cry.  My husband was with me and leaving him to follow the direction she'd gone in, I took the others home and went back to join in the search - which wasn't needed as she'd returned and both were coming back down the lane.  After that, for some weeks she wasn't let off the lead, period.  When I did, I kept calling her back, TREATING HER and sending her off again, to avoid this coming back to me only to be put on the lead (in her eyes).  People don't always see things in the eyes of the dog!

I used to tell people in class NOT to always let dog off in same place at start of walk, call them back during walk - pop lead on- couple of yards heel or bit of 'work' - reward and let off again (repeat depending on length of walk). also NOT always lead on to go home in same place. Had dog in class that would recall perfectly all round field till they got within about 10 yds of gate - then 'forget it-can't hear you-I'm busy etc.

River and I did a recall workshop a couple of weeks ago (he’s pretty good but I wanted the opportunity to practice around dogs in an controlled environment). The trainer said you need around 8-10 “fake” recalls where you just treat and then release them again for every “real” one where you put them on lead or take them away from playing with a dog, or whatever they’re having fun doing. It’s like paying money into the bank so you have plenty in there for when you need to make a big withdrawal.

I use a trailing long line with River because he isn’t keen on being grabbed by his collar or harness, and I like to practice recalling him, picking up the lead for a couple of steps and then releasing him again. He’s the kind of dog that would quickly figure out that me taking the lead means the end of his fun, so I have to make sure he doesn’t make that connection. I always reward when I pick up the lead and I usually try to do something interesting when I do it “for real” - running so he can chase me, asking for some tricks he enjoys for treats, some handling stuff like middle and walking either side of me and turning circles to left and right as we’re moving. He loves all that active stuff so I want him to know it’s just as much fun when I’ve got his lead as when he’s loose. He loves to carry a ball so I might try that too, I get the lead and he gets a ball to carry.

> Pretty much same here, I probably reward a bit more often than you because I also reward automatic check-ins

I do the same, to varying degrees depending on the individual.  Abe always gets rewarded for a check in because it's the only way I have a chance of his recall remaining reliable - he's so heavily driven to run and seek reward in his environment that I have to keep it predictably super valuable for him to come to me.