# Dogs that 'self reward'



## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

I am training a 3 yr old gsd with a good amount of drive. We are doing wilderness with a bark alert as my goal was also to do disaster work (just recently made it on to a disaster team). He has always been very very eager to work. For runaways I basically had to wrap his leash around a tree to hold him! We (teammates and I) realized at some point that he should not be pumped up to work--he got way over excited and hectic. Initially when we started doing searching, he would immediately bolt, and go like a bat out of hell for several mins. Once his brain kicked back in, he would respond to me and grid well with me. His bark alert also had gotten hectic. He basically started getting too close to the victim and 'demanding' his toy.

I was fortunate to be part of a Brenda Aloff seminar and Griffin was used as an example of the Pushy Dog. His behaviour with her really cemented to me what my teammates were trying to tell me--he was very pushy and needed stronger leadership and direction. He is pushy, but very sweet, a bit handler sensitive, and a wonderful pet. So for the past year, Griffin has had a new regime. 

His reward has also been changed. He LOVES his tug and his balls. He is also a food guy. His reward was originally a tug, but I stopped that because he liked the 'confrontation' too much and was too pumped up when he reached the victim to be polite. The balls worked better, but again, he was too pumped up when he reached the victim to give a clean indication. At this point I started hearing the phrase Self Reward. And his reward was changed to the less stimulating FOOD. I also got some 'bark and hold' help from T Floyd. Griffin needed to learn to think when he got to the victim. Being long lined and also taught to back up on command seems to have 'fixed' his pushyness at the victim.

I feel a little badly for him that he does not get to have a 'real' reward at the end of his search. I am getting that he is rewarding himself simply by searching and finding. I can see that he seems to NEED to search. But I dont think I am convinced that the search itself is a reward. He does love his food and gets very excited by it. His rewards are initially the food, then calm stroking with verbal praise. To me he looks like he is looking around for his balls and more fun.

Can anyone help me understand this self rewarding concept better? 

Thanks,

Jennifer


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Who is Brenda Aloff? Personally, I think lowering the value of the reward isn't the solution. The alert is a trained behavior. Separate the alert from the searching and teach the dog to be respectful for its ultimate game/toy. You need a skilled helper/victim here - a person that knows how to appropriately reward your dog while preventing him from getting hectic and/or mobbing the victim. This is not an easy thing to find on most SAR teams.

For disaster search, this pushiness is highly desired. There's nothing better than a dog who wants to play the game that badly. Makes training easy! 

Did you join the NJTF-1 team?

If so, let me know and I'll direct you to people who know what they're doing and can help you out.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Hey Jennifer - is this the Griffen who was a "quiet kind of dog" and had to be taught to bark? Another question - I did not think you could use food for disaster dog training?

For wilderness can you have him do the bark and hold (you know how I feel about that B&H alert on a Wilderness dog, but, that is what they do up there.........) and YOU carry the toy and reward at the find? Just a thought. I may be off base because I can really only give decent advice on the recall-refind, but just an idea. 

Konnie is a great resource, and I do agree about not changing the value of the reward. Is he still too pumped up at the victim after he has been working for 4-6 hours?

I know folks who do reward their own dog but still require the victim, handler, and dog to all be together to get it. Just a thought. COme to think of it - we reward our cadaver dogs - not a B&H but a sit alert, could be a sit and bark at source if we wanted.......


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## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

Connie-- Brenda is a 'body language', dog psych kind of dog trainer. She is pretty no nonsense kind of person. She showed me a couple of techniques that really worked with Griffin to get him to be respectful.

I have worked quite a bit on the alert separately from the search. It is now getting put together. The problem was that Griffin is a silent guy. Even now with lots and lots of barking under his belt, he does not bark any where other than training (unless I ask). He had to have quite a bit of frustration (2yrs ago) to get the first couple of barks. So basically I trained him to be agitated when he barked (live and learn I guess). 

Nancy, I am hoping that now that we have the alert under control, I can work up to longer problems again--we've been doing reps of find and alert. I will see how he feels after a few hrs of searching. My team thinks he is finally ready to begin the certification process.

I am on TF1 and so is most of my wilderness team!! And yes, Griff is great for disaster. Right now I am pretty happy with how he is working. Everyone understands what he needs and I pick my victims carefully.

I am still curious about the Self Reward thing though......

Thanks for the replies!!!!


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Oh, it sounded like you switched him to food to tone him down

The context in which I have heard self rewarding used is for the dog who gets bored and finds a stick or other toy to play with if the search is too long for their experience. Or he finds the victim, rewards himself, but does not alert. Or the dog whose owner is oblivious to the dogs body language (eg on a boat) and picks up a toy to reward himself.


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## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

We did switch him to food (for wilderness) to see if it would tone him down. I am not sure it it did or my teaching him to back up on command did or a little of both. Basically I taught him, with food, to back up and he would get the treat tossed to him. I also now do it with the ball. He still scoots foward (and then backs up), but he is thinking so is much less obnoxious.

My training director is using the self reward term to explain to me that he is getting his reward just by doing the search. He definately doesnt get bored LOL. He is highly desirous to interact with the victim.


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Jennifer Michelson said:


> Connie-- Brenda is a 'body language', dog psych kind of dog trainer. She is pretty no nonsense kind of person. She showed me a couple of techniques that really worked with Griffin to get him to be respectful.


Not to be picky, but its Konnie with a K. There's another Connie on this board who spells it with a C. OK, so Brenda is not a SAR person, but a behaviorist. Glad she was able to help you!



> I have worked quite a bit on the alert separately from the search. It is now getting put together.


Good!



> So basically I trained him to be agitated when he barked (live and learn I guess).


This isn't a bad thing, depending on what you mean by agitated. We train all of our USAR dogs initially to bark for their reward through frustration. Then their default behavior when frustrated for the toy is to bark. Solves a whole lot of training issues that might pop up over time.



> I am on TF1 and so is most of my wilderness team!! And yes, Griff is great for disaster. Right now I am pretty happy with how he is working. Everyone understands what he needs and I pick my victims carefully.


Great to hear that!!! Elizabeth Kreitler and Sonja Heritage from FEMA's VATF-1 travel to NJs training site often to assist with training. I think she (Eliz) was there recently? Anyhow, if you get the opportunity to train with them, take what they tell you and treat it as gospel. Those 2 ladies have been there done that with everything USAR and have great success in dealing with training issues. There are a lot of people in USAR who talk the talk but can't walk the walk. Sometimes its tough for new people to sort out who to get advice from. Elizabeth and Sonja walk the walk.



> I am still curious about the Self Reward thing though......


Self reward on the search? Over time, the search (or any type of work for a working dog) can be self-rewarding I suppose. However, its not something I would experiment with a young dog on. Its not enough (IMO) to drive a USAR dog to search for hours and hours in nasty disaster conditions. You need the high desire to tug/fight/play upon finding the human quarry to achieve success in that environment, especially during the initial training. Elizabeth Kreitler (mentioned above) has an awesome seminar she gives to USAR teams about drives and our disaster SAR dog. Let me know if you'd like to contact her directly and I'll give you her contact info. Although, I'm sure you'll meet her eventually!

I'll likely meet you eventually too. I used to travel down to NJ a bit, but haven't done it lately. Hopefully I'll be able to get down there soon. Tell Alice I said Hi :grin:


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> Another question - I did not think you could use food for disaster dog training?


You can use food, but very few people do. I'm almost positive that for the FEMA Foundation Skills Assessment or the SUSAR Type II Basic Level test (essentially the same test) you cannot reward your dog with food. You can on the FEMA Certification Evaluation and SUSAR Type I Advanced Level test.



> For wilderness can you have him do the bark and hold (you know how I feel about that B&H alert on a Wilderness dog, but, that is what they do up there.........) and YOU carry the toy and reward at the find? Just a thought. I may be off base because I can really only give decent advice on the recall-refind, but just an idea.


B&H doesn't work so well in the deep woods and mountains, eh? :razz: The wilderness team I was on in the Midwest uses a B&H, but we were always searching water or cornfields. The B&H worked fine there. I know Nancy Lyons in NH who is the NE's wilderness SAR guru does not allow B&H on her team at all. 

And, the handler reward thing can be done. I've seen it done very poorly (dog has a problem looking for handler instead of focusing on victim location), but I've seen it done well too. Its all just training and rewarding the desired behaviors, right? :razz: 

Sounds like Jennifer has a really nice dog! I look forward to hearing more about his progress!


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I assume just getting into a USAR Task force entails a lot! So I imagine Jennifer and Griffen are well suited!

Well, in the south I assume a B&H dog could get shot  but seriously it is hard sometimes with the mountains to figure out where a sound is coming from. It just seems the victim would be more likely to run or strike out .........maybe not?


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## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

Sorry about the 'C', Konnie--I wasnt paying attention!

I did meet Elizabeth in Jan. We spent 2 cold cold days with her! She did the Drive seminar for us and it was very informative. I hear Sonja's name pop up often but havent met her yet.

We do a tug reward for disaster. There is a food dog or two--seems to be some inherent problems associated with it though.

Nancy--The teams that I know who do a bark alert do it because they also do disaster. I do know of some who do refind. I think Griff would be well suited to refind had I not wanted to do disaster.

So far my team is not real keen on me rewarding, lots of worry about victim loyalty. Right now all seems to be clicking, so I am stuck with it LOL. I would prefer a ball reward....we'll see what the future brings after he mellows a bit or is really steady in his alert habits.


Konnie: If I can get Alice to take a breath I will tell her you said HI!!


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## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

By the way--thanks for the compliments. Griff is a good guy and I am coming along........LOL


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I do fully understand the victim loyalty concept - we use it. Just wondering if there is any way you can keep using that "high dollar" reward. Even if the victim gives food ............ then YOU give the tug to the victim once you get there and continue the game. He should not be distracted knowing you have the tug. Also, we often have the victim play with the dog on the way back from the find.

Cyra is a food dog through and through but for shoreline water searches we throw the ball and she brings it back and swaps it out for food [she has very good ball drive but food is stronger] ............. I gotta admit I like working better with balls and tugs!

Oh, I know, we have had the disaster/wilderness bark and hold discussion before. I still have a hard time understanding having a dog that does urban disaster AND wilderness ..........but I know it is done. 

Down here I figure we actually get wilderness calls, but if there is a big urban disaster none of us are suited to respond and we know that but there are trained CERT teams and we would call all y'all  You have more "city" up there and that kind of training.


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

I have a bark alert wilderness dog! Plus I live in the mountains

Though my bread and butter is avalanche profile (where a refind would be unacceptable), I was encouraged to put a wilderness profile on my dog as we did not have any in the valley where I live. I consider myself a beginner as far as the wilderness profile is concerned. (first certified last year, recert yearly)

Though our wilderness exam only inculdes large articles (crazy RCMP/Canadians :wink and they are allowed to retrieve them (OMG :-o ), I decided on my own to teach a bark alert for lives.

In our summer training for the avi profile up to that point, you could say we use a "find and bite the rag" reward, were the person is hidden holding a rag, and when the rag is bitten they come to life/reward. (in the winter they dig as an alert, rag reward is in the snow with the victim). Obviously in a wilderness setting the victim will not be walking around with a bite rag exposed so I taught a bark for the hidden rag.

Well you can imagine my dog was very pushy in the beginning as in the past the reward had always been right there to bite!!! I think I even posted my issue with this on another site and Konnie gave me some advice.

With working it seperatly he was able become less pushy. I have no idea what is considered acceptable down there, or if we would meet that standard. I can think of a lot of stuff still to experiment and work on for myself/dog in the wilderness profile.

I decided to only do wilderness if it would not interfere with my winter work, and so far I have been pleased, but long term I am prepared to drop it if I have too. 

I have always thought of self rewarding in the way Nancy discribed it in her earalier post.

I also agree with Konnie that I do not expect my dog to be rewarded just by searching and would want to use the craziest, super duper reward I had in my arsnal to help the dog push through hard times....


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Interesting .................. I don't know anyone in the SE that uses this but it obviously works for others. I really do have a very hard time finding a sound in the mountains though. Some of the dogs range out far when they hit scent - once one was 1/2 mile away when they made the find.

Well there is one fellow on another team but he moved here from Maryland ..................


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

Don't want to highjack anymore than I have, but I catch your drift....:wink:


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## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

Jennifer Coulter said:


> I also agree with Konnie that I do not expect my dog to be rewarded just by searching and would want to use the craziest, super duper reward I had in my arsnal to help the dog push through hard times....



We definately do not expect Griff to be rewarded by the searching its self. I think it is a thought/conclusion based on watching him for 2 yrs and trying to figure him out. 

High value rewards (heck, any reward) jack him up quite a bit. Our main goal with him at this point is calmness and using his brain. No hectic behaviour.

And just to clarify--this is all in relation to wilderness work. For disaster he gets his very valuable tugs. Because he needs his drive to get him through rubble, hidden victims, noise etc, he gets his favorite thing. And the victims are non accessable so its ok is he is pushy!!

Thanks for all the input!


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## Erik Berg (Apr 11, 2006)

Isn´t this exactly the type of dog you want as a good workingdog, doing SAR or long tracks for the police when rewards isn´t always found, a dog that likes the job so much that it´s selfrewarding, and not needing any tugs,balls or food as motivation to work for long periods, just the work itself and praise by the handler, the tendency for the dog to being to stessed upp for his ball or whatever seems to be less of a problem then also, or?


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I think most of the hunt is self rewarding as they are fulfilling a basic drive. The dog without hunt drives will fall apart relatively quickly, but there are trained behaviors (e.g., the alert sequence, the nature of the target being hunted for, etc.) necessary to find and communicate to the hander the target has been found. The dog not reinforced for hunting for people may just decide that hunting for deer is more fun. etc.

Any behavior that is not rewarded will extinguish.

There are many dogs with high hunt drive (e.g., bloodhounds) that are not over the top for toys --- but even bloodhounds must be rewarded and corrected as they seem particularly notorius for wanting to trail other "more interesting" odors.


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## Jennifer Michelson (Sep 20, 2006)

Erik Berg said:


> the tendency for the dog to being to stessed upp for his ball or whatever seems to be less of a problem then also, or?


I have been told repeatedly that it is a good problem to have LOL. It only interfers with our trained indication. Because we use a bark indication, we have to make sure the dog isnt too pushy with the victim. The dog has to learn to control his desire for the ball and bark cleanly.


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## Kim Gilmore (Feb 18, 2008)

Coming in on the fly here, but thought I would add my loose change on the topic.

Attended a week long training in Austria a few years ago and found that the Europeans who where there (had handlers from Germany, Austria and Spain present) primarily reward with food on the bark and hold upon the find THEN after problem is finished, will reward with the toy on the way back to or after arriving back at their vehicles.

When asked why they do this as opposed to the victim rewarding with that favorite toy, they stated that they get a lot less of a frantic and more focused/methodical searching dog and a more focused and prolonged bark once victim was located. Now keep in mind, this is on the BARK dogs. They also support refinds/bringsels and those dogs use a toy at the victim.

They get great results using these methods and was very impressed by what I was seeing. Most of these dogs were primarily disaster trained with wilderness as a secondary discipline.

Up here in our neck of the woods, we advocate refind's as with the expanse we search with the terrain and vegetation issues we deal with, we'd not hear our dogs barking if they are far-ranging. If winded or tired after a long search, bark is not going to be as strong as it needs in order for us to find their location with any ease (add to that echo's in canyons really confusing the human counter-part!). Some of our dogs bark upon return to the handler before going back to the victim (if really hot or tired, ends up being a jaw clack), others do a bump re-find. Have a pup we're going to be initiating a bringsel refind with.

Kim Gilmore
NW Montana, USA


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Awesome Kim (welcome to the board, I know you to be the voice of experience)!

That is kind of what I was thinking in post 12 (food at the victim then add the tug) - it was a confidence buidler to see I was not off the mark.

I had something kind of like the bringsel - I hung a small tug on my belt because my experience with the dog carrying a toy was them dropping it and I was concerned about them snagging it on all the underbrush we have here if it was attached to her collar. If I had it to do over I would have just done a bump (But I here that there is a reason men don't always like the bump  )

Would love to hear your reflections after you try it.


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Kim Gilmore said:


> ...found that the Europeans who where there (had handlers from Germany, Austria and Spain present) primarily reward with food on the bark and hold upon the find THEN after problem is finished, will reward with the toy on the way back to or after arriving back at their vehicles.


This doesn't make any sense to me. What would the purpose of the toy reward be on the way back to the vehicle? If a behavior that is reinforced is likely to be repeated, and that reinforcer (whether conditioned or primary) must follow the behavior within X number of seconds, then how is the dog to connect the toy/tugging with the search-find-bark behavior sequence?? In this case, it would seem that food is the reinforcer and the toy has no purpose in conditioning the behavior. So, why use the toy at all?



> When asked why they do this as opposed to the victim rewarding with that favorite toy, they stated that they get a lot less of a frantic and more focused/methodical searching dog and a more focused and prolonged bark once victim was located. Now keep in mind, this is on the BARK dogs.


I only train bark alert dogs for FEMA and my CT SUSAR team. In my experience, "frantic" behavior is usually accidentally conditioned into the dog by the helper/victim in training or poor handling (overall, just bad training). The duration of the bark alert is a conditioned response as well. Its easy to build a long duration bark alert using a toy/tug/play reward. I can't see what advantage food would have over the toy for this either. 

What I see in the FEMA system with food reward dogs is a lack of sustainability of the search and alert - quite the opposite of what you saw in Europe. Perhaps it is just a matter of skill involved in either method. 



> They get great results using these methods and was very impressed by what I was seeing. Most of these dogs were primarily disaster trained with wilderness as a secondary discipline.


I would love to see this training and the results in action. Sounds interesting.


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## Kim Gilmore (Feb 18, 2008)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I had something kind of like the bringsel - I hung a small tug on my belt because my experience with the dog carrying a toy was them dropping it and I was concerned about them snagging it on all the underbrush we have here if it was attached to her collar. If I had it to do over I would have just done a bump (But I here that there is a reason men don't always like the bump  )


I think it will probably end up being a modified bringsel doing what you did with a tug hanging from a belt loop. Dog returns and grabs tug and takes that back to victim for reward.

An associate from Norway who I met when in the Canary Islands at an IRO conference developed and patented a very nice bringsel collar that had a quick release should it get caught in the brush, yet once the dog engaged the bringsel, was unable to drop it (reminded me of the old neck/mouth gear that people had to wear with braces) unless it got caught. In our vegetation as well, things do get snagged which is the reason we don't encourage dogs to wear collars when working and all shabracks need to have velcro closures (as opposed to buckles or fastex clips) so the dogs can get out of them if they get caught on downfall. The ONLY time they wear equipment that can't tear off easily is if they are being worked on-line (i.e. tracking/trailing).

Our male K9 handler (who is 6'2 and works a lab) has an issue with the bump refind for some reason...dunno 8-[ . He opted for the bark upon return/refind which is working great for them. Puppy is a little bark-happy right now, handler has seen the "domestic abuse" re-find bruises in various irridescent colors on those of us who have bump dogs and is pretty convinced she doesn't want to go that route :-? . For now however, the little guy is having fun finding people buried in the snow and trailing, so hopefully we won't have to worry about it for a bit and see what he will naturally give us that we can mold and modify as an indication.

Kim Gilmore
NW Montana


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Kim Gilmore said:


> I think it will probably end up being a modified bringsel doing what you did with a tug hanging from a belt loop. Dog returns and grabs tug and takes that back to victim for reward.


I wound up leaving the tug attached to me - dog kept dropping it on the way particularly on multiple refind scenarios over long distances. Good thing was she did not seem to care but I lost several tugs that way. Conversely, a friend had a dog that would not drop the toy come hell or high water.


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## Kim Gilmore (Feb 18, 2008)

Konnie Hein said:


> This doesn't make any sense to me. What would the purpose of the toy reward be on the way back to the vehicle? If a behavior that is reinforced is likely to be repeated, and that reinforcer (whether conditioned or primary) must follow the behavior within X number of seconds, then how is the dog to connect the toy/tugging with the search-find-bark behavior sequence?? In this case, it would seem that food is the reinforcer and the toy has no purpose in conditioning the behavior. So, why use the toy at all?


Something for the handler to do?:-k No clue and I agree with you that the food is the reward for the desired behavior (sustained bark). 

Kim Gilmore
NW Montana


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I can definitely see this working if the food bridges the gap but think that play at the site with all three present would be most effective. But I would consider that to be a short bridge. That is how I use a ball for shoreline water searches with a food dog. 

I have heard of quite a few others who have play all the way back to the truck. And we have done that with some dogs and it does seem motivating to extend it that way. 

You know, however, when we TRAIN cadaver we reward at source with toy, but for the real thing it is a reward after the session is over because you may not know for sure the dog was alerting on human source until forensics has evaluated. We have to build that into our training so the dog knows they do not get directly reinforced for each cadaver find.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

I've seen the bringsel commented in this post. I've only seen that in some of the old German dog training books. 
What keeps that from becomming a reward to the dog?


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