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Hi! I am Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village and today we are going
to talk about training dogs. So let us talk about rewards. Many people wonder why they
have to reward their dog; they feel their dog should obey them because they said so.
Well sure, you have to obey your boss because he said so, but is not nice to get your paycheck
every couple of weeks. So if you reward your dog during the training process, then those
behaviors are really going to stick and it will teach your dog that you are in control
of resources and it will give them a job to do that is worth doing. So an important thing
to remember when you are rewarding your dog is to be very, very quick, to mark the behavior
and then reward intermittently. It is not a good idea to reward constantly. You do not
want to give your dog a reward every time they do something right and also be careful
not to reward your dog unless they have done an appropriate behavior that is a mistake
a lot of us make. Keep your rewards intermittent and keep in mind in a couple of years when
your dog is not behaving quite as well, pull the treats out, it will really help. Now the
type of rewards you give your dog could be anything, from a piece of dog food, to a piece
of cheese, to a carrot, just something else that motivates your dog. Some dogs are motivated
by praise and petting but for the most part, they prefer something a little more dog like.
Labradors are walking stomachs and they love chasing balls. Certain terriers love squeaky
toys, so figure out what your dog really likes and allocate those resources when they are
behaving themselves.