Motivation: What Gets You Up in the Morning?

[murph]

Have you ever wondered why your dog sometimes listens, and sometimes doesn't? In my previous post, The Four Quadrants of Operant Conditioning and What They Mean For You and Your Pup: Part I, I go over shaping behavior and extinction. @Malakai The Great also covered this topic in his post Why Your German Shepherd Acts Out (and It’s Not Because They’re Stubborn). So if you are not familiar with these terms and ideas , read these posts first.

Motivation is what gets us up in the morning. Humans can be motivated to go to work to make money to buy groceries. We may be motivated to create art to unleash a creative outlet. Sometimes we even help those less fortunate than us to fulfill a sense of accomplishment.

But who writes your dog's checks?

GSD are notorious for being "one person" dogs. This usually refers to their propensity to stick to and even only listen to one person that they consider their "person". This can sometimes lead to unwanted behavior (Velcro dogs) or can be used to benefit the handler (in the case of Schutz Hund or protective training).

For the purposes of this post, your dog's "checks" are the "payment" or reward that the receive for completing a task that you ask of them. Again, check my post on Operant Conditioning for a deep dive into how to shape behavior.

What are some things dogs perceive as "pay checks"?

➡ Food
There are several breeds of dogs who are notorious for living to eat (Labrador Retrievers are one of the first dogs that come to mind). While GSDs are not known for their food motivation, most dogs will accept a treat as payment for completing the task at hand. Here are some examples of treats you might give your pet. Keep in mind that every pet is different, and special care should be taken in the case of food allergies or medical conditions such as but not limited to weight issues and diabetes.​

• Treats​
• Cheese​
• Peanut butter​
• Hot dogs​

➡ Play
Play is one of the best ways to make training fun. Adult dogs teach puppies many skills through play, and this is an excellent way to interact with your dog in a fun way. When training a dog, if you make everything a "game" The dog will learn quicker, and do their best to "win" the game. There are several ways that you can turn training into a game. One of the best ways is to use a second game as a reward for completing the task at hand.

Examples include:​

• Toys​
• Tug​
• Fetch​
• A run in the yard​

➡ Praise
Dog's are the first animal that humans ever domesticated, before even agriculture. After 14,000 years of selective breeding and conditioning, almost every dog lives for our approval. GSDs are no exception.

Though praise might seem like the least enticing of all the rewards compared to play and food to us, you may be surprised how willing your dog is to learn and work for your love and adoration.

Examples of praise​

• Belly Rubs​
• Pats on the head​
• Excited talking​

Final Notes: Food, play and praise are all good ways to motivate your dog. In fact, as a trainer, I suggest using a combination of all three to train your dogs. There are positives and negatives to each of these training methoods. Using treats exclusively might land you in hot water if you don't have any treats on you for whatever reason. Using play or praise exclusively may not be enough to break your dog's drive in a high stress situation if they value food above all else.

The thing I hope pet parents take from this post is to find the motivation that works best for your pup. No matter what any Youtuber, Dog Trainer, Animal Behavioralist, or random post on the internet says, if they are not looking at your specific dog, there is no way anyone is going to be able to know what kind of currency your dog prefers to get the job done.

At the end of the day, you will notice a difference in the way your dog responds to the person who trains them with their preferred method of payment, and who trains them based on their own personal style preference.

Who writes your dog's checks? Let me know in the comments below!

Sources​

1. The Four Quadrants of Operant Conditioning and What They Mean For You and Your Pup: Part I​
2. Why Your German Shepherd Acts Out (and It’s Not Because They’re Stubborn)​

 

[Malakai The Great]

Really solid post, I like how you tied motivation directly to “who writes the checks.” That analogy makes it click for a lot of people.

It’s so true that every dog has their own currency, and that it can even change depending on the environment or the level of stress. I’ve had dogs who would ignore food when their drive kicked up, but they’d work all day for a tug or even just the next rep of engagement. Others would happily trade everything for a calm “good” and eye contact.

That line about mixing all three, food, play, and praise, is spot on. The strongest training relationships come from knowing when to pivot between them. It’s not about the type of reward so much as how well we time it and how much meaning it carries coming from us.

Excellent write-up. You’re building a great series here, clear, practical, and easy for anyone to apply.

 

[Andre]

Hot dogs for dogs, love it. Never really heard of that up until a few months ago, but the high value reward + relatively cheap makes a lot of sense.

Cool post Murph

 

[PopeHolySmoke]

People underestimate the value of praise. Dr. Gregory Burns at Emory University has been studying this using fMRI with awake dogs. He found that a much larger portion of the dog's brain lights up when the dog thinks praise is coming vs a food reward is coming. While there is variability from dog to dog, the results were very consistent:

"On a practical level, our results emphasize the importance of social reinforcement to dogs. Thirteen of 15 participants showed roughly equal or greater caudate activation to expectation of praise than expectation of food reward. The stability of this neural marker of preference, and its prediction of dynamic choice behavior, suggests that the majority of our participants found social interaction at least as rewarding as food."

Praise can be a really powerful tool since it releases endorphins. You can use it to amp up another reward or on its own and it costs nothing. I see this with our SAR dogs. Handlers that incorporate a lot of praise into the reward tend to have dogs that learn quicker, are more willing to work through difficult situations, and are more reliable and bombproof. I use it regularly in day-to-day life as a reinforcer for behaviors my dog is fluent in. Every single recall gets at least a mini praise party. This keeps one of her most important behaviors rock solid because she wants to come get told how awesome she is and have that endorphin rush.

A clip from a PBS Nova espisode about it: https://www.pbs.org/video/do-dogs-love-us-or-do-they-just-want-treats-xkpcxa/
The study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5141954/