Not sure if this is a behaviour or food problem

[lindavamp666]

Hi all:wave:

Just wanted some of your opinions on something I've noticed about Timber. Like I said it's to do with his behaviour and food. What I've noticed is that all of the time more so lately that you can call him and he'll come to you, sniff your hands to see if you have a treat. If you go to pet him then he'll back away and go sit by himself or go and it seems to me pout in the kitchen. It seems he only wants to come to you to see if have something for him and if you do give him something he just takes it and goes. He has three meals a day at present but he usually does get little treats during the day cos the kids do like to give treats and fuss him.

Has anyone else experienced this? To me it seems like he acting up like a child who's throwing a bit of a paddy cos he's not getting his way sorta like if you want me to come you gotta give me something but then I could be wrong. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Tan J P]

have you always treat trained him?

and given him a treat everytime he has come/sat etc etc.

if so could be that is why he is doing it.

other than that not really sure.

we treat trained ours,but,also,when they came running we sometimes just gave them loads of praise and no treat.

so now,its seems they come now in hope,but dont go off again when its not delivered,they are happy with the praise

the treat is an added bonus!

[lindavamp666]

Yes Tanya we have treat trained him. When we first had Timber and started training him to pee on the training mat, we rewarded him everytime with a small treat. Then I started to cut back on the treats and gave him praise and even now he still gets praised with "good pee Timber". I do get some odd looks tho when people here me:lolman: But when I first stopped giving the treats for peeing on the mat and gave him praise there was quite a few occasions where he'd go and look at you and pee on the livingroom carpet.

Generally when we start him with something new i.e. giving paw we start with treat training and then start cutting back on the treats and then give more praise. I don't know if this has any bearings in the problem tho, we caught Emily sneaking treats out of his box to give to him without us knowing. She'd been calling him and feeding him on the sly (little minx!). Should i stop with the treat training altogther and start praise training perhaps? Incidentally Timber's treat box has been put right out of Emily's reach.

[BingBlaze n Skyla]

sounds like a typical sibe - dont wanna do anything unless u get a treat for it lol - instead of patting him ON the head tho - see what he does if you go to stroke him under the chin - he might be more comfortable with that - - i would also make sure u explain to emily u need to teach him to come to u wether u have treats with you or not incase he gets out of the house n runs off or manages to get off his lead ect - i would start phasing the treats out too - so maybe once or twice he gets a treat - 3rd time he doesnt then he does then he doesnt twice - just alternate it till u can slowly ween him off them

[shadow01]

Lol yes that what I was thinking Nix. Typical Sibe!!! lol. The strops and the moods can be quite comical if you detatch yourself from the annoyingness of it all Also what they will do is move or bum shuffle ever so slightly away from you knowing full well you cant reach them without moving to stroke them Then there is the oh you just told me off so I will go sit with my back facing you routine Not all sibes do this, some do it a little, some do it till you want to pull your hair out It's their vertion of putting 2 fingers up I reckon

[Arooroomom]

Sometimes dogs get "treat-wise" I used to have this problem when i'd be at the lake and i'd whistle recall them and if I ran out of cookies they would know and totally ignore recall. After that I started changing it up and giving them different rewards. Tugging has been the best motivator by far but we use a lot of different reward techniques.

[Michelle Melsom]

Maybe just use praise instead of treats :/

[jnetser]

You might want to try to train 2 different recalls. "Come" or whatever your current word is, for around the house or yard and you can use different rewards like treats or praise and mix them up so he never knows when the treat is coming. Then choose a different word which would be your emergency recall. For this recall he would always get a super great treat everytime you use it. Something even better than your usual training treats. This would be the word you would use in an emergency, like if he ran out the front door or his leash broke and you couldn't risk him not making a bee-line back to you. When you train this recall always grab on to his collar just before he gets the yummy treat so it becomes part of the recall. This way he doesn't grab the treat and back away. You don't want him to come to you then dash away if he is in danger.

[Elyse]

Suka's like that too. He won't do any tricks unless he sees me with a treat. I guess he was treat-trained as a puppy - I tried training with praise but he cares more about the food. LOL

[Bec]

If your dog won't do anything without seeing a treat it's because the sight of the food has become a trigger for the command, not the command itself.

This often happens when people use luring to train a lot of their commands.

The best thing to do in your training is make sure that you get rid of lures as soon as possible and get treats out of sight - not eliminate them entirely but don't let the sight of the treat become part of the command itself.

A couple of tips:

- If you use a treat bag always have it behind your back not in front of you or to the side where your dog can see it

- Have treats in your pocket or in your opposite hand behind your back NOT in the hand you give the command with

- Have the treats sitting in a container on the counter or somewhere off your body and when your dog gets a command right run over to the treats together and make it a big exciting fun event

[<3Jess<3]

Hope the praise training goes well...Does sound like he just expects a treat when he does something

[lindavamp666]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm glad for the most part it sounds like normal sibe behaviour. I was worried perhaps he was unhappy being here with us cos he's the only dog in the house and was perhaps missing his own kind. I know he has plenty of human company here but i do worry about him being lonely.

I've already starting to use some of the tips suggested. Nix was spot on with the head pat so now we tickle his beard or his chest. Timber seems more comfortable with it. Emily has also been told in no uncertain terms she is not to give him treats like she has been and the treat box has been put out of her way.

I found jnetster's suggestion of an emergency recall a great idea. i do worry about him getting out and not getting him to come back so I have started training Timber with an emergency recall command and giving him something nice when he does it correctly but other than that treats have been cut right back on. if does something good he gets a treat every so often not everytime like he was getting. He gets a real fuss made of him when he's done something now and this is done more than a treat is given. when a treat is given tho i have started to do like Bec said and make it exciting for him.