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Food in Training: Part IVThis is the fourth and final episode in the “Food in Training” series. Hooray! We hope you have enjoyed learning how best to employ food in training your furry family member. In this episode, Emily and Libby cover the caveats of food in training. There are ways food can be counterproductive, and in this episode you'll learn all about what not to do when using food in training.
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Episode Transcript
Emily 0:09
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to pod to the rescue. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:21
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:22
And we are here today with another training Basics episode, we are wrapping up our series on using food in training.
Emily 0:30
Yeah, I can't believe it just kind of flew past but we thought we would just do a little wrap up, discuss a little bit what Libby and I use for food when we do our training and work with our dogs. And then at the end, we thought we would just do a little bit of like, a caveat about, you know, ways that food can go awry, just so that we make sure everyone really got the the real technique of using food. And so definitely try to stay tuned till the end we're going to make try to make it as brief as possible. But there are ways you can go off track using food and we want to make sure that you don't do that.
Libby 1:08
So to jump right into the what I use everything from kibble all the way to chopped up little bits of hot dogs, or poached chicken breast or really stinky organ meats, and all sorts of that kind of thing. So there's a wide range of what you can use whenever you're using food to train your dog.
Emily 1:37
Yes, you know, Sarah Walsh has actually a great YouTube video we could link to on just all the different trees she uses. And I would recommend all of them actually, she has a good variety. But one thing I really like is Ziwi peaks. It's dehydrated, food from New Zealand's really expensive but it's food grade. So I tried to have Ziwi peaks or real meat at all times it's called There's another one called real meat, dog food. So those two are like nutritionally formulated to be like a full meal for your dog. Because I tend to give so much food, you know, for training that at the end of the day, it's like, I don't want my dog to have like two cups of treats and one cup of kibble, you know, I want them to have a full balanced meal. So I like the zero peaks and the real meat, you can even cut them up smaller, small is definitely great. It's better to have five small pieces than one large piece.
Libby 2:39
I love those too. And those, for me, are in this spectrum of kind of higher value. You know, they're stinkier, they're softer, they're super yummy. It's more reinforcing for Daisy to have one of those available. And then it is just a piece of our everyday Little Kevin. And just like you, you know, I can kind of do a little math and figure, okay, if if we're going to use one scoop of Ziwi peak today, then that's, you know, I only give her two scoops for breakfast and dinner or something like that. So it's pretty easy to figure out her total caloric intake.
Emily 3:18
Right? Yeah, that makes sense to me. And I guess I consider them like medium to high depending on the dog. One thing is like, the learner decides what's the value really. So, you know, at this point Piper has been with me a year. So I'd say she considers the more like medium. You know, she's like, Okay, I've had like 47 of those. I'm looking at a rabbit what she got. I tend to like you know, add in some like you were saying like chicken breast or hot dogs like something that's like really good. Sometimes like some cheese. I know Jean Donaldson is a big fan of using Romano cheese. I think it is or like a parmesan like a hard cheese because it doesn't get Kerberos in your pouch. So I know Vicki Graham uses that all the time from Costco.
Libby 4:14
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there are there are so many options of creative things that are suitable to feed a dog and there is a wide range of what your dog might find the most the least reinforcing. You know, a lot of people even use Cheerios and their dogs find Cheerios really reinforcing. And hey, that's great. You know for cheese, I like to cut up the part skim mozzarella sticks, or like string cheese. Not the fried stuff. That's not easy. I don't share that. So there are so many options. You don't have to buy super expensive treats, but you can definitely find Something that's healthy for your dog, and that can be a part of their overall balanced diet.
Emily 5:06
I worked with a trainer a few weeks ago who does search and rescue and what she does is she takes kibble and then mixes it with something really smelly, because she's all about the olfactory senses and how that can infuse into the kibble. So she had like salmon in a ziplock with kibble. And that seemed to like add some value to the kibble.
Libby 5:28
Yeah, as a dog. I love to do that too. I mean, pretty much if we're going out for a regular old walk, we're not doing any really difficult training. In my treat pouch. I have a mix of kibble and Ziwi peak and fresh pet and real meat and you know, maybe some cheese I just have a little, little little snack mix for Daisy. And it's kind of nice because you know, if I'm just rewarding a check in, then I can grab a piece of kibble but if there's a bike going by and she turns away from it, then I'm gonna really jackpot that with you know, a handful of goodies.
Emily 6:08
Totally Yes, Piper with the bunnies has been what she gets the big reward like you're allowed to look at the bunnies. But please don't drag me off my feet to go say hi. I don't need to meet a bunny. So, yeah. So yeah, we can link to that great video or a couple of these options but
Libby 6:31
and something else that Emily and I have mentioned, is using a treat pouch and I think that I feel really strongly about using a treat pouch and carrying a treat pouch. If you just bring along a baggie like a plastic baggie. It's it's hard to get your hand in there. It's hard to be quick, it's hard to be precise. And being quick and precise with your reinforcement is important when you're using food and training. We'll get into that get to that in a minute. But just I mean, is it the most stylish thing? No, but fanny packs are coming back into style. I you know, I just look at it as if I'm strapping a harness and a leash onto my dog I'm putting shoes on I'm grabbing my sunglasses and my treat pouch every single time. So I highly recommend using a treat pouch.
Emily 7:19
And not all tree pouches are created equal. I've had so many clients or myself in the past struggled with like floppy treata pouches where you're trying to get your hand in and it's like you're there's a lot of a lot of resistance by the pouch to getting your hand in and out. So we love and we don't get any profits from this. I wish we did the doggone good rapid reward tree pouch I think is the best one. There's a couple others, but that one's my favorite. It's not your favorite.
Libby 7:51
Yeah, that's I have two of those. And you know because I tend to use like stinky treats. They do get a little gross. I just you know whenever one starting to get a little funky, I toss it in the washing machine and dry it and then I have the other one available. So yeah, I love those things.
Emily 8:09
I've started putting a Ziploc bag or reusable Ziploc inside just because that's so smart. So afraid to give myself like salmonella. So yeah, so yeah, so I come home, wash it out, and then I washed the bag like every and I'm not even a clean freak. Don't Don't get me wrong. But yeah, the salmonella factor somehow I've had food poisoning a few times. I'm like, oof, don't want to do it. Yeah.
Libby 8:35
Um, alright, so now we're going to talk about a few caveats to the idea of using food as a reinforcer and training.
Emily 8:43
I think we touched on this just a little bit in the beginning of all these episodes was like, you know, full disclosure, I used to just kind of throw food at my dog and not really understand what I was doing. And I felt like it didn't work. So there is even though we're like, it's really easy. It's also like easy, the way Dancing is easy. You kind of have to know the steps. And so we just wanted to throw out a couple of, you know, caveats on how this could go sideways. And then hearken back to Sarah Walsh, who has like how to click or train 101 how to shape a sit, like her YouTube channel can kind of walk you through everything because a podcast can't really do it justice. So our little caveats are not at all. Do you want to start Libby?
Libby 9:34
Yes, number one, do not flood your dog. All right, so we've spoken previously about how a dog whether or not a dog is eating is a good indicator of their emotional state. Now there are some dogs that can be over threshold but still eating and that might look like gobbling food, taking treats really be hard. And you might look at that behavior and say, well, she's still eating. So let's keep going. But that puts you at risk for putting your dog in a situation where they're truly not comfortable. So you need to look at the whole dog, you need to pay attention to the body language of your dog pay attention to other signals. And especially for me, if a dog is taking, taking treats really hard, like they're nipping my fingers, they're gobbling. That's a sign for me that we need to create a little more space here.
Emily 10:37
Yep. And looking at that whole dog of like, do we see? Does the dog seem stressed, their muscles seem tight? Or do they seem loose and floppy in the scenario, because I know from personal experience, I love food. So I can eat even during like a really tense family conversation. If I have pizza in front of me, I will keep eating. But that doesn't mean I'm enjoying the conversation. Really, we want the dog to feel good. That's the whole point of using the food is to make positive associations.
Libby 11:10
You know, I think that if you're asking your dog to perform a task that is too difficult, whether that is looking away from a bike, I'm just I'm using that as an example. Because that's a thing I work on daily with Daisy. If you're asking your dog to do a task that's too difficult, and they're stressed out, they're not going to retain that training session very well. So it's in everybody's best interest to take a few steps back, make it a little bit easier on the dog, and try again.
Emily 11:45
And you could be creating a negative conditioned emotional response. That is the that is the worry. Like if you bring your dog into the deep end of the pool, and you're like, well, they're still eating the steak, but they're really close to the bike, you could actually like, do the opposite of what your goal is, and create more of a negative emotional response. And I gotta say, this stuff does work because I walked Piper around Wunderland, like today. And like, she was getting leash reactive about like eight months ago, and we have worked our butts off. And now we can just walk past dogs, like within like three feet. But that, you know, that's, that's new that we can just walk past them and say we're not meeting and she just walks and I feel it as we walk past. But she's getting really good. So it really does work. But had she continued to have some negative interactions with dogs, I think we would have gone sideways.
Libby 12:45
Totally. Yeah. As another example, this morning, Daisy ignored three bikes. Yeah, she just looked at them and looked back at me like, Hey, you notice that right? And of which, of course I rewarded her for because that's the behavior I want to see.
Emily 13:00
Right? Because Daisy is a healer has been, you know, her genetics are to, you know, go after things that are moving fast in the environment.
Libby 13:08
So that's huge for her to look at a bike and look away. Okay, so we've covered flooding and distance. Okay, here's another really important one, the order of operations. This goes both for operant and classical, right?
Emily 13:25
I guess in a lot of ways it does like with opera, you want to mark and then feed with classical conditioning, you want to make sure that they notice the stimuli and then add the food. If you give them the food before the stimuli or you know, the thing and the environment is present, you run the risk of like having them be like food mean scary things happen, and you're not actually changing the emotional response. So really being clear in the order of operations,
Libby 13:57
that trigger has to predict food, not the other way around. Okay, so finally, we have talked about operant learning and classical conditioning and basically teaching your dog's behavior or making them feel better about a certain aspect of their environment. One thing we haven't really touched on is using food as a lure, which is, is totally fine. In some situations, sometimes that's the best solution. And an example of this might be if you are out walking your dog, and they are okay, so it's summer in Colorado, and this is like a pretty common thing. You come around the bend and there's a big rattlesnake and in the middle of the trail and you just need to get the heck out of dodge and your dog is not listening to your leave it or let's go or whatever. It's okay to stick a handful of food in your dog's face and lure them away. Hmm, that's okay as an emergency measure, it's also something that you can, if you realize is, it might be necessary for your dog if your dog's reactive, if your dog is easily over a threshold, and you know, you just kind of become background noise, then that's something maybe you should practice and learn an emergency you turn of like, okay, here is a treat magnet, you can teach a behavior called a treat magnet, which means treating my hand follow my hand, we're going to move your body out of the space,
Emily 15:33
right? Going back to that like distance is your friend, almost as much as food, though it's like, distance from something cannot be underestimated as a reinforcer.
Libby 15:46
So I think that just about wraps it up for our series on using food and training. If you all have any questions about this, please get in touch with us on social or you can email us at [email protected]. And yeah, definitely let us know if there's something we didn't touch on that you have questions about. And we will try to work it into a future episode. So we are in the process of wrapping up our first season of pot to the rescue, which is super hard to believe. So stay tuned for our next season coming up, we have a few more episodes in this season. And then we're going to take a little bit of a break. But we're going to start adding in a new feature next season, which is tales from the trenches. And we're going to be talking a little bit more with people who are working in shelters and other rescues and who foster. And so we're going to start telling some of those stories as well.
Emily 16:43
Yeah, our goal is that in 10 years, this entire tragedy of unwanted pets becomes so diminished. That, you know, there's really big tales out there to tell. And I think if if the general public knew some of it, we could really start addressing it as a societal problem. And how can we come up with ways that these animals are supported and that adopters are supported and fosters like, it's a big thing. I don't think people realize how big of a deal it is to take a dog off it, van and bring it into your home until it's happened. And you know, sometimes it just goes great. But a lot of times it's hard. So, you know, the goal is for the next decade to really have a much better support system in this country for animals and animal welfare and all the humans whose hearts open up to them.
Libby 17:40
I don't know that dog rescue will ever be completely obsolete. But I hope that in 10 years, it is a much, much, much different landscape than it is today. We definitely want to bring more of these stories to light just so people really understand what what's going on with unwanted pets in our country. So and how we won't help. Yeah, yeah. And how we can dissolution just, yeah, that's what it's all about. So that is what's happening here at pod to the rescue. Do we need to do an update on Summit dogs?
Emily 18:19
Boomer slash Finn is totally different dog. I mean, holy moly. If there was ever a dog that had we documented his two or three months in rescue, you could see what proper decompression really can bring to a dog. He is different dog like he is loose and waggly and approaching people and just a happy, pretty confident dog after three months, which is amazing. I wouldn't say super confident but he's not the shutdown fearful dog. And he has someone out here visiting from California who might adopt him. We're like kind of heartbroken to think of him leaving. But she's really great. And the idea of him going to the ocean and romping and hiking in the mountains of northern California does not sound like a bad life with a really good person.
Libby 19:14
I had my doubts about how Finn was going to turn out but his fosters were so they are so patient with him and they they listened to what we asked and they took it slow and they gave him the space to be himself and he is just blooming out and it's amazing.
Emily 19:35
And then we have on a sad note. Like a rescue. Non success. I don't know what's the opposite of I guess rescue failure. I hate to use that word but it's um you know, we learn as we go and the stock mostly who came in four years ago. We used to do I'd say more adopt terms than we do now and maybe a little bit less oversight. Like we, we get more and more careful, the more we learn. And so like four puppies are found, I think on the side of the road and Mississippi Mosley was one of them, they flew in on a plane. And we're pretty quickly adopted thing a couple of weeks. And this poor guy, mostly, he went to some young people in Lakewood, or someplace down south of Denver, and they did construction on their house, pretty soon after getting him during, you know, the key adolescent, you know, six months, eight months, nine months old, period, I'm sure he wasn't like an overly confident puppy to begin with. And then being in a crate with like construction people coming in. And, you know, just he was pretty darn fearful by the time he was a year. And they were like, you know, we don't really want a fearful dog. And by the way, he's 95 pounds, and we didn't think he would be that big. So we're returning him. And long story short, he got another home up in the mountains. And he's been there for three years. And now she is moving. And she sold her house in July 1, she is moving out of the state. And mostly it's getting returned. Yeah.
Libby 21:15
And it's it's one of those terrible situations that in mostly as humans life that nobody can first see. And it really sucks that she's going through it. And poor Mosley is just a casualty of, of life, and, but we have to figure something else out for him. So we are scrambling to find a new placement for him or a semi permanent foster until his mom can get back on her feet.
Emily 21:46
But we do have someone we're introducing him to their dogs today. And I told her he's not highly adoptable. But it kind of comes back to like why we're so like, listen to our podcast and listen to all the things we're saying about management and food and training. It's like, mostly came in with the cards stacked against him due to his like, initial three months of being found on the side of the road is a puppy, but it could have gone the other way had he gone to good adopters who really watched his signals and didn't leave him flooded in the house with the contractors like there were ways that hadn't been done correctly, his life wouldn't have taken a sideways turn and it's hard to make up lost progress.
Libby 22:31
This is the reality of you know what happens in dog rescue when when people take it too fast when you're not careful. And, you know, everyone makes mistakes. But there are it's heartbreaking whenever we have to deal with the fallout of those mistakes. So,
Emily 23:05
you know, and and the whole thing about operant versus classical like I know, it seems really like why the heck would you need to know that. But I was actually listening to like a Ph. D. geneticist yesterday on a podcast talking about dog training. And he said, How can you train an animal if you don't understand how they learn? And I was like, he's like, that's why everyone really needs to know this. You don't need to know the terms. You know, you don't need to, like in your mind really be like, is this awkward? Or is this classical? But just understanding like, rewarding good behavior and managing behavior. You know, like just the basics could really go a long way and why you don't use punishment.
Libby 23:43
We our role here on this podcast is just to keep up that education so that dogs like him have the best chance of success that they possibly can. And the people and the people. Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue
Emily 24:25
kumbaya
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to pod to the rescue. I'm Libby.
Emily 0:21
And I'm Emily.
Libby 0:22
And we are here today with another training Basics episode, we are wrapping up our series on using food in training.
Emily 0:30
Yeah, I can't believe it just kind of flew past but we thought we would just do a little wrap up, discuss a little bit what Libby and I use for food when we do our training and work with our dogs. And then at the end, we thought we would just do a little bit of like, a caveat about, you know, ways that food can go awry, just so that we make sure everyone really got the the real technique of using food. And so definitely try to stay tuned till the end we're going to make try to make it as brief as possible. But there are ways you can go off track using food and we want to make sure that you don't do that.
Libby 1:08
So to jump right into the what I use everything from kibble all the way to chopped up little bits of hot dogs, or poached chicken breast or really stinky organ meats, and all sorts of that kind of thing. So there's a wide range of what you can use whenever you're using food to train your dog.
Emily 1:37
Yes, you know, Sarah Walsh has actually a great YouTube video we could link to on just all the different trees she uses. And I would recommend all of them actually, she has a good variety. But one thing I really like is Ziwi peaks. It's dehydrated, food from New Zealand's really expensive but it's food grade. So I tried to have Ziwi peaks or real meat at all times it's called There's another one called real meat, dog food. So those two are like nutritionally formulated to be like a full meal for your dog. Because I tend to give so much food, you know, for training that at the end of the day, it's like, I don't want my dog to have like two cups of treats and one cup of kibble, you know, I want them to have a full balanced meal. So I like the zero peaks and the real meat, you can even cut them up smaller, small is definitely great. It's better to have five small pieces than one large piece.
Libby 2:39
I love those too. And those, for me, are in this spectrum of kind of higher value. You know, they're stinkier, they're softer, they're super yummy. It's more reinforcing for Daisy to have one of those available. And then it is just a piece of our everyday Little Kevin. And just like you, you know, I can kind of do a little math and figure, okay, if if we're going to use one scoop of Ziwi peak today, then that's, you know, I only give her two scoops for breakfast and dinner or something like that. So it's pretty easy to figure out her total caloric intake.
Emily 3:18
Right? Yeah, that makes sense to me. And I guess I consider them like medium to high depending on the dog. One thing is like, the learner decides what's the value really. So, you know, at this point Piper has been with me a year. So I'd say she considers the more like medium. You know, she's like, Okay, I've had like 47 of those. I'm looking at a rabbit what she got. I tend to like you know, add in some like you were saying like chicken breast or hot dogs like something that's like really good. Sometimes like some cheese. I know Jean Donaldson is a big fan of using Romano cheese. I think it is or like a parmesan like a hard cheese because it doesn't get Kerberos in your pouch. So I know Vicki Graham uses that all the time from Costco.
Libby 4:14
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there are there are so many options of creative things that are suitable to feed a dog and there is a wide range of what your dog might find the most the least reinforcing. You know, a lot of people even use Cheerios and their dogs find Cheerios really reinforcing. And hey, that's great. You know for cheese, I like to cut up the part skim mozzarella sticks, or like string cheese. Not the fried stuff. That's not easy. I don't share that. So there are so many options. You don't have to buy super expensive treats, but you can definitely find Something that's healthy for your dog, and that can be a part of their overall balanced diet.
Emily 5:06
I worked with a trainer a few weeks ago who does search and rescue and what she does is she takes kibble and then mixes it with something really smelly, because she's all about the olfactory senses and how that can infuse into the kibble. So she had like salmon in a ziplock with kibble. And that seemed to like add some value to the kibble.
Libby 5:28
Yeah, as a dog. I love to do that too. I mean, pretty much if we're going out for a regular old walk, we're not doing any really difficult training. In my treat pouch. I have a mix of kibble and Ziwi peak and fresh pet and real meat and you know, maybe some cheese I just have a little, little little snack mix for Daisy. And it's kind of nice because you know, if I'm just rewarding a check in, then I can grab a piece of kibble but if there's a bike going by and she turns away from it, then I'm gonna really jackpot that with you know, a handful of goodies.
Emily 6:08
Totally Yes, Piper with the bunnies has been what she gets the big reward like you're allowed to look at the bunnies. But please don't drag me off my feet to go say hi. I don't need to meet a bunny. So, yeah. So yeah, we can link to that great video or a couple of these options but
Libby 6:31
and something else that Emily and I have mentioned, is using a treat pouch and I think that I feel really strongly about using a treat pouch and carrying a treat pouch. If you just bring along a baggie like a plastic baggie. It's it's hard to get your hand in there. It's hard to be quick, it's hard to be precise. And being quick and precise with your reinforcement is important when you're using food and training. We'll get into that get to that in a minute. But just I mean, is it the most stylish thing? No, but fanny packs are coming back into style. I you know, I just look at it as if I'm strapping a harness and a leash onto my dog I'm putting shoes on I'm grabbing my sunglasses and my treat pouch every single time. So I highly recommend using a treat pouch.
Emily 7:19
And not all tree pouches are created equal. I've had so many clients or myself in the past struggled with like floppy treata pouches where you're trying to get your hand in and it's like you're there's a lot of a lot of resistance by the pouch to getting your hand in and out. So we love and we don't get any profits from this. I wish we did the doggone good rapid reward tree pouch I think is the best one. There's a couple others, but that one's my favorite. It's not your favorite.
Libby 7:51
Yeah, that's I have two of those. And you know because I tend to use like stinky treats. They do get a little gross. I just you know whenever one starting to get a little funky, I toss it in the washing machine and dry it and then I have the other one available. So yeah, I love those things.
Emily 8:09
I've started putting a Ziploc bag or reusable Ziploc inside just because that's so smart. So afraid to give myself like salmonella. So yeah, so yeah, so I come home, wash it out, and then I washed the bag like every and I'm not even a clean freak. Don't Don't get me wrong. But yeah, the salmonella factor somehow I've had food poisoning a few times. I'm like, oof, don't want to do it. Yeah.
Libby 8:35
Um, alright, so now we're going to talk about a few caveats to the idea of using food as a reinforcer and training.
Emily 8:43
I think we touched on this just a little bit in the beginning of all these episodes was like, you know, full disclosure, I used to just kind of throw food at my dog and not really understand what I was doing. And I felt like it didn't work. So there is even though we're like, it's really easy. It's also like easy, the way Dancing is easy. You kind of have to know the steps. And so we just wanted to throw out a couple of, you know, caveats on how this could go sideways. And then hearken back to Sarah Walsh, who has like how to click or train 101 how to shape a sit, like her YouTube channel can kind of walk you through everything because a podcast can't really do it justice. So our little caveats are not at all. Do you want to start Libby?
Libby 9:34
Yes, number one, do not flood your dog. All right, so we've spoken previously about how a dog whether or not a dog is eating is a good indicator of their emotional state. Now there are some dogs that can be over threshold but still eating and that might look like gobbling food, taking treats really be hard. And you might look at that behavior and say, well, she's still eating. So let's keep going. But that puts you at risk for putting your dog in a situation where they're truly not comfortable. So you need to look at the whole dog, you need to pay attention to the body language of your dog pay attention to other signals. And especially for me, if a dog is taking, taking treats really hard, like they're nipping my fingers, they're gobbling. That's a sign for me that we need to create a little more space here.
Emily 10:37
Yep. And looking at that whole dog of like, do we see? Does the dog seem stressed, their muscles seem tight? Or do they seem loose and floppy in the scenario, because I know from personal experience, I love food. So I can eat even during like a really tense family conversation. If I have pizza in front of me, I will keep eating. But that doesn't mean I'm enjoying the conversation. Really, we want the dog to feel good. That's the whole point of using the food is to make positive associations.
Libby 11:10
You know, I think that if you're asking your dog to perform a task that is too difficult, whether that is looking away from a bike, I'm just I'm using that as an example. Because that's a thing I work on daily with Daisy. If you're asking your dog to do a task that's too difficult, and they're stressed out, they're not going to retain that training session very well. So it's in everybody's best interest to take a few steps back, make it a little bit easier on the dog, and try again.
Emily 11:45
And you could be creating a negative conditioned emotional response. That is the that is the worry. Like if you bring your dog into the deep end of the pool, and you're like, well, they're still eating the steak, but they're really close to the bike, you could actually like, do the opposite of what your goal is, and create more of a negative emotional response. And I gotta say, this stuff does work because I walked Piper around Wunderland, like today. And like, she was getting leash reactive about like eight months ago, and we have worked our butts off. And now we can just walk past dogs, like within like three feet. But that, you know, that's, that's new that we can just walk past them and say we're not meeting and she just walks and I feel it as we walk past. But she's getting really good. So it really does work. But had she continued to have some negative interactions with dogs, I think we would have gone sideways.
Libby 12:45
Totally. Yeah. As another example, this morning, Daisy ignored three bikes. Yeah, she just looked at them and looked back at me like, Hey, you notice that right? And of which, of course I rewarded her for because that's the behavior I want to see.
Emily 13:00
Right? Because Daisy is a healer has been, you know, her genetics are to, you know, go after things that are moving fast in the environment.
Libby 13:08
So that's huge for her to look at a bike and look away. Okay, so we've covered flooding and distance. Okay, here's another really important one, the order of operations. This goes both for operant and classical, right?
Emily 13:25
I guess in a lot of ways it does like with opera, you want to mark and then feed with classical conditioning, you want to make sure that they notice the stimuli and then add the food. If you give them the food before the stimuli or you know, the thing and the environment is present, you run the risk of like having them be like food mean scary things happen, and you're not actually changing the emotional response. So really being clear in the order of operations,
Libby 13:57
that trigger has to predict food, not the other way around. Okay, so finally, we have talked about operant learning and classical conditioning and basically teaching your dog's behavior or making them feel better about a certain aspect of their environment. One thing we haven't really touched on is using food as a lure, which is, is totally fine. In some situations, sometimes that's the best solution. And an example of this might be if you are out walking your dog, and they are okay, so it's summer in Colorado, and this is like a pretty common thing. You come around the bend and there's a big rattlesnake and in the middle of the trail and you just need to get the heck out of dodge and your dog is not listening to your leave it or let's go or whatever. It's okay to stick a handful of food in your dog's face and lure them away. Hmm, that's okay as an emergency measure, it's also something that you can, if you realize is, it might be necessary for your dog if your dog's reactive, if your dog is easily over a threshold, and you know, you just kind of become background noise, then that's something maybe you should practice and learn an emergency you turn of like, okay, here is a treat magnet, you can teach a behavior called a treat magnet, which means treating my hand follow my hand, we're going to move your body out of the space,
Emily 15:33
right? Going back to that like distance is your friend, almost as much as food, though it's like, distance from something cannot be underestimated as a reinforcer.
Libby 15:46
So I think that just about wraps it up for our series on using food and training. If you all have any questions about this, please get in touch with us on social or you can email us at [email protected]. And yeah, definitely let us know if there's something we didn't touch on that you have questions about. And we will try to work it into a future episode. So we are in the process of wrapping up our first season of pot to the rescue, which is super hard to believe. So stay tuned for our next season coming up, we have a few more episodes in this season. And then we're going to take a little bit of a break. But we're going to start adding in a new feature next season, which is tales from the trenches. And we're going to be talking a little bit more with people who are working in shelters and other rescues and who foster. And so we're going to start telling some of those stories as well.
Emily 16:43
Yeah, our goal is that in 10 years, this entire tragedy of unwanted pets becomes so diminished. That, you know, there's really big tales out there to tell. And I think if if the general public knew some of it, we could really start addressing it as a societal problem. And how can we come up with ways that these animals are supported and that adopters are supported and fosters like, it's a big thing. I don't think people realize how big of a deal it is to take a dog off it, van and bring it into your home until it's happened. And you know, sometimes it just goes great. But a lot of times it's hard. So, you know, the goal is for the next decade to really have a much better support system in this country for animals and animal welfare and all the humans whose hearts open up to them.
Libby 17:40
I don't know that dog rescue will ever be completely obsolete. But I hope that in 10 years, it is a much, much, much different landscape than it is today. We definitely want to bring more of these stories to light just so people really understand what what's going on with unwanted pets in our country. So and how we won't help. Yeah, yeah. And how we can dissolution just, yeah, that's what it's all about. So that is what's happening here at pod to the rescue. Do we need to do an update on Summit dogs?
Emily 18:19
Boomer slash Finn is totally different dog. I mean, holy moly. If there was ever a dog that had we documented his two or three months in rescue, you could see what proper decompression really can bring to a dog. He is different dog like he is loose and waggly and approaching people and just a happy, pretty confident dog after three months, which is amazing. I wouldn't say super confident but he's not the shutdown fearful dog. And he has someone out here visiting from California who might adopt him. We're like kind of heartbroken to think of him leaving. But she's really great. And the idea of him going to the ocean and romping and hiking in the mountains of northern California does not sound like a bad life with a really good person.
Libby 19:14
I had my doubts about how Finn was going to turn out but his fosters were so they are so patient with him and they they listened to what we asked and they took it slow and they gave him the space to be himself and he is just blooming out and it's amazing.
Emily 19:35
And then we have on a sad note. Like a rescue. Non success. I don't know what's the opposite of I guess rescue failure. I hate to use that word but it's um you know, we learn as we go and the stock mostly who came in four years ago. We used to do I'd say more adopt terms than we do now and maybe a little bit less oversight. Like we, we get more and more careful, the more we learn. And so like four puppies are found, I think on the side of the road and Mississippi Mosley was one of them, they flew in on a plane. And we're pretty quickly adopted thing a couple of weeks. And this poor guy, mostly, he went to some young people in Lakewood, or someplace down south of Denver, and they did construction on their house, pretty soon after getting him during, you know, the key adolescent, you know, six months, eight months, nine months old, period, I'm sure he wasn't like an overly confident puppy to begin with. And then being in a crate with like construction people coming in. And, you know, just he was pretty darn fearful by the time he was a year. And they were like, you know, we don't really want a fearful dog. And by the way, he's 95 pounds, and we didn't think he would be that big. So we're returning him. And long story short, he got another home up in the mountains. And he's been there for three years. And now she is moving. And she sold her house in July 1, she is moving out of the state. And mostly it's getting returned. Yeah.
Libby 21:15
And it's it's one of those terrible situations that in mostly as humans life that nobody can first see. And it really sucks that she's going through it. And poor Mosley is just a casualty of, of life, and, but we have to figure something else out for him. So we are scrambling to find a new placement for him or a semi permanent foster until his mom can get back on her feet.
Emily 21:46
But we do have someone we're introducing him to their dogs today. And I told her he's not highly adoptable. But it kind of comes back to like why we're so like, listen to our podcast and listen to all the things we're saying about management and food and training. It's like, mostly came in with the cards stacked against him due to his like, initial three months of being found on the side of the road is a puppy, but it could have gone the other way had he gone to good adopters who really watched his signals and didn't leave him flooded in the house with the contractors like there were ways that hadn't been done correctly, his life wouldn't have taken a sideways turn and it's hard to make up lost progress.
Libby 22:31
This is the reality of you know what happens in dog rescue when when people take it too fast when you're not careful. And, you know, everyone makes mistakes. But there are it's heartbreaking whenever we have to deal with the fallout of those mistakes. So,
Emily 23:05
you know, and and the whole thing about operant versus classical like I know, it seems really like why the heck would you need to know that. But I was actually listening to like a Ph. D. geneticist yesterday on a podcast talking about dog training. And he said, How can you train an animal if you don't understand how they learn? And I was like, he's like, that's why everyone really needs to know this. You don't need to know the terms. You know, you don't need to, like in your mind really be like, is this awkward? Or is this classical? But just understanding like, rewarding good behavior and managing behavior. You know, like just the basics could really go a long way and why you don't use punishment.
Libby 23:43
We our role here on this podcast is just to keep up that education so that dogs like him have the best chance of success that they possibly can. And the people and the people. Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs. You can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue
Emily 24:25
kumbaya
Transcribed by https://otter.ai