How to stop treats as a reward

October

Our female dog is almost 11 months and we have her 7 months. We live in an apartment on 7th floor so we use puppy pads. When training her to use the pad she was rewarded with a treat. Now she sometimes does a little dribble just to get a treat!! The other day we didn’t give her a treat and she couldn’t believe it!!!! She went back to the pad as if to double check the pee was there and came back looking for a treat! She doesn’t get a treat for peeing/pooing outside and doesn’t look for one. I suppose the best way is to just stop giving the treats and just ignore those puppy eyes when she looks for one?

tk123

You've trained her to wee inside to get a treat. I'd start praising her for going outside but you need to time it that while you're encouraging her to go you don't actually praise her until she's gone and finished. At 11 months she shouldn't really need pads anymore and should be asking to go outside.. or is it that you want her to go on the pads rather than having to take her outside?

October

Thanks for your reply. I presume we will always need the pad because we live in an apartment. She is walked 3-4 times a day and pees/poos outside with no problem. I had thought at this stage she would be asking to go out but she doesn’t. She doesn’t pee overnight but does the minute she wakes up so she can hold it. Think I will start bringing her out as soon as she starts sniffing at the pad, that might get her to start asking to go out. Will try stopping the treats so there is no incentive there for her to pee inside.

tk123

We had bells on the door for Lucy. At first I touched her nose to them before I took her out but she caught on soon enough and would drive us mad ringing them louder and louder if we didn’t open the door :pac:

em_cat

tk123 wrote: »

We had bells on the door for Lucy. At first I touched her nose to them before I took her out but she caught on soon enough and would drive us mad ringing them louder and louder if we didn’t open the door :pac:

Haha my OH said we should do that, I was like no feckin way as I knew that would happen.

OP we have a porch potty that we’ve had for years as we’ve had small dogs. found it fantastic as it helped toilet train our current 9 mos rescue spitz. She has finally started to toilet on her walks and now sits on our balcony step to go out.

October

Took her at least 4 weeks to finally pee/poo outside!!! She used to wait until she came home and made a mad dash for the pad!!!

em_cat wrote: »

tk123 wrote: »

We had bells on the door for Lucy. At first I touched her nose to them before I took her out but she caught on soon enough and would drive us mad ringing them louder and louder if we didn’t open the door :pac:

Haha my OH said we should do that, I was like no feckin way as I knew that would happen.

OP we have a porch potty that we’ve had for years as we’ve had small dogs. found it fantastic as it helped toilet train our current 9 mos rescue spitz. She has finally started to toilet on her walks and now sits on our balcony step to go out.

Paddy Cow

October wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I presume we will always need the pad because we live in an apartment. She is walked 3-4 times a day and pees/poos outside with no problem. I had thought at this stage she would be asking to go out but she doesn’t. She doesn’t pee overnight but does the minute she wakes up so she can hold it. Think I will start bringing her out as soon as she starts sniffing at the pad, that might get her to start asking to go out. Will try stopping the treats so there is no incentive there for her to pee inside.

1st bold She's not going to ask to go outside if she knows she's allowed to do it inside. As far as she's concerned, it's perfectly acceptable to pee on the pad so it wouldn't enter her head to ask to go outside.

2nd bold I don't think that will help and will just confuse her, just like she got confused when she didn't get a treat for peeing. If you want her to only pee outside, then you'd be better off getting rid of the pads altogether. Think of it in human terms. It would be like providing smokers with a smoking room but still expecting them to go outside to smoke.

One thing I learned early on with mine is that treat rewards aren't the best solution (maybe it works for others but definitely not for me). I was trying to teach them the basic "sit" command and when they'd sit, I'd give them a treat. They learned to sit very quickly but the first time I got them to sit and didn't give them a treat they looked at me like "are you kidding me?" and walked off in disgust. It took ages to retrain them to sit without expecting a treat in return. On the plus side they are very good now when it comes to food and don't beg. If they want something I'm eating they automatically sit and wait until I give it to them

Habits are hard to change. I'd suggest contacting a trainer to get some tips. If your dog is being walked 4 times a day there shouldn't be an issue, unless you have to leave the dog alone during the day for work and the pad is a necessity. Dogs are all or nothing. Either she can pee on the pad or she can't. That's about as much thought as she will put into it. She won't start to ask to go outside unless she knows that's her only option.

Gael23

This is a hard one. We just use tiny little training treats so it’s not a big thing if he gets a few in a day.

tk123

Paddy Cow wrote: »

1st bold
One thing I learned early on with mine is that treat rewards aren't the best solution (maybe it works for others but definitely not for me). I was trying to teach them the basic "sit" command and when they'd sit, I'd give them a treat. They learned to sit very quickly but the first time I got them to sit and didn't give them a treat they looked at me like "are you kidding me?" and walked off in disgust. It took ages to retrain them to sit without expecting a treat in return. On the plus side they are very good now when it comes to food and don't beg. If they want something I'm eating they automatically sit and wait until I give it to them

This is why you use a variable reward rate - so you stagger when you give them the reward or you might praise this time and reward the next etc etc I had somebody scoffing at me one time that using treats was stupid (I know you're not saying that btw!) when I had called one of the dogs to me and treated them - 'but then they'll expect a treat every time they come back' - eh thats the whole point so when there's an emergency and I need them back asap they'll come back!

I think in the OPs case the problem is that they've trained the dog to wee indoors so it's the pad that needs to go IMO and not the treats. I know plenty of people who have dogs in apartments and the dog is taken out as needed. The same with my two - they generally poo on their walks and rarely in the garden because they have a routine. I'd assume it'a small dog too or they place would be flooded lol and the pads would have been gone long ago

Paddy Cow

tk123 wrote: »

I had somebody scoffing at me one time that using treats was stupid (I know you're not saying that btw!)

I know what you are saying Using treats isn't stupid if it's done the way you did it. I didn't realise that and solely used treats, which is the wrong way to do it as I was teaching my dogs that sitting results in a treat, rather than they should sit on my command.

Pet Mania had a dog day where they had a groomer, trainer etc in store and you could go and ask questions. The trainer did explain to me the treat system you use which I tried on my dogs to teach re-call. It was a disaster as the times I didn't have treats they weren't impressed and wouldn't come back to me after that as they weren't guaranteed a treat. So that was my bad. Now I just use positive reinforcement and luckily that works.

October

Decided to go cold turkey with giving up treats!!! It has been hard to ignore those puppy eyes but Day 5 now and still going strong!!!!!

sillysmiles

Four years into having our adult dog (as in adult when we got him) I still reinforce training with treats. IMO the idea is that sometimes he get treats and sometimes he doesn't so that he does it right all the time as he never knows if he is going to get a treat or not.

cocker5

Depends on the treat!

My guys treats are sugar snap peas and raw carrots !

Paddy Cow

cocker5 wrote: »

Depends on the treat!

My guys treats are sugar snap peas and raw carrots !

Mine absolutely love monkey nuts. I discovered this by accident. I have two parrots and buy the nuts for them. One day I bought a couple of bags of nuts. They were in a shopping bag and I was rushing for work and just left it on the ground. I didn't think anything of it until I came home from work and there were nut shells everywhere! The dogs had got hold of them and went to town. It never even occurred to me that dogs love nuts. It was a b!tch cleaning up the mess but at least I know they don't have a peanut allergy :pac: