Imagine there's a grizzly bear on the street outside your house. If there was a $10 bill stuck to its bum, would you go get it? What if there was $100,000 stuck there with a little piece of tape? What if it was $1,000,000?
Eventually, the reward would be worth the risk for most of us and you would sneak up on that bear, heart pounding, body flooded with adrenaline and cortisol.
Hopefully you come away unscathed and with a big wad of cash!
Would you now love and trust bears? Not likely!
When we use high value reinforcers for our dogs (or horses), we can mask the fear responses and end up coercing our animals into a situation where they really aren't comfortable and would rather not be.
The very common scenario is a puppy who is afraid of people. We give people cheese, liver, and other yummy treats to lure the puppy in for pets. If the puppy has only a minor fear of people, this might work.. HOWEVER.. if the puppy has a larger fear of strangers, we can create a huge problem.
Food motivated dogs will put themselves in (perceived) danger in order to get a treat. We teach dogs to approach strangers, teeth first, even though they are afraid, even though they are filled with adrenaline and just want to move away.
Caveat - If your dog isn't afraid, go ahead, use that cheese, tripe, chicken, or whatever you fancy!
This is how we create dogs who bite
Some of these dogs learn to run up to strangers (potential murderers), filled with adrenaline, expecting cookies. If the person doesn't have cookies, or trips or sneezes, or makes another unexpected movement, or dog can feel like they have no option but to bite.
Many dogs learn to run up to strangers barking. They bark as a warning. "I don't trust you!", "I don't want you to touch me!", but they have been taught that when a stranger is near, they have to approach them.
If you have a dog who is worried about people, don't allow strangers to give them cookies.
This is so important. If your dog wants pets from the person eventually, they will ask for them. If your dog doesn't want strangers to pet them at all, that is 1000% ok. I sure don't like strangers touching me without consent.
When we have a person who we do want our dog to get to know, there is a lot we can do with social support and parallel activities, no food comes from the potential murderer.
It's not just about stranger danger
This topic came up with I made a post about training my horses in which I mentioned that I am using low value treats for the first stages and may change to high value treats in a few sessions.
I'm training my colt, Zephyr, and my new senior horse, Benji, to happily walk into a horse trailer. Zephyr was a little worried about the trailer but with some patience, happily goes in for scratches and low value food rewards.
Benji however is too scared to go in for low value food. He LOVES the hay cubes when he feels safe, but he isn't willing to put himself in danger to get them. For a prey animal like a horse, trailers can be very scary.. they remove a horse's ability to run away from danger.
This is excellent information! If I used high value food now with Benji, I might have the impression that he is ok with getting in the trailer. I could take him for a ride, then if another stressor occurred such as he was tired or a big truck went by and scared him, the food might not be enough to override his fear of the trailer.
Instead, I will pop Zephyr and my mare Shea in the trailer with some high value food (since they aren't scared) while Benji work on skills away from the trailer. I will clicker training to teach him to step onto platforms for treats. I can use high value there since it isn't near the trailer and he isn't afraid of platforms!
I will also teach Benji to nose target a target stick and again, I can use high value treats there since he isn't afraid of the stick. Once I have a lot of value built up in that, I can switch to low value food and play advance and retreat games with the scary trailer until he is no longer afraid and looks forward to the sessions. I'm changing his pessimism into optimism!
Dogs work the same way
If your dog is truly afraid of nail trims, the vet, putting on their harness, car rides, etc., then only use low value food or other low pressure training techniques. Start button training and advance and retreat games are often super useful too!
If your dog is anxious, be very careful about using any kind of coercion, whether it is leash pressure, social pressure, or high value food pressure. These techniques might not seem aversive since they aren't tools meant to hurt the dogs, but they can be coercive nonetheless.
Take your time and always listen to what your dog has to say =)
