Rewarding the experience

If a dog has done something correctly, you want to reward her, so she does that right thing again.  Right?  Has it occurred to you to think about how your dog would prefer to be rewarded, versus what you think of as a good reward for your dog?

In The Bark magazine, Patricia McConnell has an article called "Rewards Redux" in which she discusses this very thing.  I enjoyed the article when I read it, and in the online dog circles I follow, it keeps cropping up as more people discover it.

I've discussed this a little bit, in the Clicker Crossover: Loose Leash post.  On walks, if I run out of treats but in other instances just to switch things up, I get Elka's play drive revved up.  I have a variety of rope toys that I carry, and once she's stayed in the proper loose leash "bubble" for a proscribed amount of time, we have a round of tug, and then I let her shake the toy around for awhile, and maybe even carry it for a block.

Tennis Balls: star search for sturdy doggie ones

Elka loves tennis balls.

I got a tube of them for her when she was just a puppy, and she bounced around the house gleefully with her first ball, until it popped a hole in it so loudly that she dropped it and leaped away, then picked it up and ran to me.  She shoved that ball in my lap and backed away, looking me in the eye and mouthing the air, very clearly meaning for me to fix it.

She's become less sensitive about their welfare.

The Clicker Crossover: Loose Leash

Everybody wants their dog to be a dream on the leash.  Some dogs are such maniacs with leash clipped on that they don't get walked, which makes it that much worse. I've been lazy at times, I'll admit it, and Elka has not been so great on the leash in the past.  Not out of control, necessarily, but certainly not in control either.  And a big puller, certainly; it isn't as though she was even being "bad", she just wanted to see what was over there. Right now.

I've tried a variety of methods, so you can add "inconsistency" to the list of things I've done wrong.  I've tried to "Be a tree", where I just stand there if Elka is not in the position I'd prefer, waiting for her to smarten up and get there.  It turns out, she can wait at the end of a leash, staring off into nowhere, for a good long time while I be a tree long enough to grow some leaves.  I've tried to change direction erratically, so that she needs so pay attention to keep up, but it turns out that Elka is very perceptive, and can change direction and sprint ahead of me again before I've made it very far. I've tried positioning her collar up behind her ears and walking her on a very short leash, which keeps her by me (and walking as though she should've had a V8), but isn't at all pleasurable for either of us, and is punishing rather than teaching.  Briefly, when she slipped a previous collar, Elka wore a choke chain, but I switched that out very soon. Elka didn't really care if she was being choked, for one, and I knew I was doing it wrong.  Really, I'd much prefer my dog to go along with what I'd like, rather than be muscled into it.