Using food as a reward system is an awesome way to teach or shape a new behavior. The equation is simple:
Correct behavior = 1 treat
This system works for the beginning stages of training but continuing with this method will not give you functional training and by functional I mean it actually works in real life scenarios. So, you shatter the cup taking it out of the dishwasher and your dog actually downs instead of seeing if they like the taste of glass first. Your kids rip open the pack of m&ms and they’re everywhere but your dog doesn’t try to beat the vacuum to the mess.
Having a dog that only listens while you stand in the kitchen with a cheese stick will not help you when you actually need it.
So, how do you actually start fading the food?
It is actually quite simple, start using the jackpot method! What this means is that not every single rep will get a treat, even if they did the right thing. Think Vegas. If you got $20 every time you hit the slots you would be happy but I guarantee that you would be even happier if instead of a consistent and predictable $20 you randomly got $5,000. The same concept applies to dog training. When your dog sits and they get the same 1 cookie, they’re happy but they’re also patterning. When you become unpredictable, it keeps your dog on their toes and it makes training FUN again.
During your next training session, set aside 10 treats for the entire session and sporadically reward your dog and remember, 1 treat can be broken up into 5 or 6 little pieces to increase the duration of the reward.
For example: You are working on proofing your sit and you know that your dog knows this so instead of rewarding each rep with 1 treat, reward 1 out of every 4-5 sits with several treats OR several broken up pieces of 1 treat (your dog doesn’t know the difference).
For your dog this is like hitting the jackpot in Vegas!