Bribe VS Reward — What’s the Difference?

Bribe VS Reward — how to successfully teach a skill using food without making your dog dependent on it!

Dog Bribe = relying on showing your dog food in order to get a response. What’s the problem? If the thing your dog wants to do is more motivating than your food, you lose!

Dog Reward = the paycheck that comes AFTER the dog has responded successfully to a cue you’ve previously taught.

Dog Lure = Using food for a SHORT period of time in the beginning stages of teaching a skill to show the dog what you expect.

Knowing how and when to use and remove food is important for sustained reliability. If food is removed too early, the skill won’t have enough reinforcement history to stand on its own. If done too late, your dog may become dependent on seeing the food in your hand to understand the cue.

As an example, let’s talk about how to teach a down cue from start to finish using LURING as the method.

1 — show your dog how to get into the position you want using a food lure. There should be no verbal cue initially since your dog doesn’t know what you want yet — no point in wasting your cue!

Work several repetitions of this until the motion of your dog getting into the down is fluid and the dog is readily following food into the…