How are our dogs motivated.
When I am initially assessing a dog at the start of a behaviour evaluation I am working out why the dog is behaving the way it is, then ultimately what I need to do to motivate the necessary changes. In my opinion there are 3 main motivators that our dogs give to us. I say give to us whole heartedly because dogs want to comply and know how to live amongst us happily. I look for a motivator so that I can reward the desired behaviour in a way that will encourage it to have a lasting affect. A motivator is what our dogs will crave as a reward for a learnt behaviour. In no particular order here are my three that nearly all dogs will strive for. Some dogs will give us all 3 yet some will give 1 or 2 and very rarely some dogs will give none of these 3.
*Food
*Ball
*Affection
Firstly I will talk about food motivation. This is probably the most common motivator that I come across when working with dogs and possibly the easiest to create. Dogs are natural survival experts and scavenging food is a part of that arsenal. Which means that the opportunity to receive a tasty morsal for a repeated task is a great opportunity so providing we teach that task correctly and we Know that food is a sufficient reward for our dog when the task is completed, the behaviour will stay. There is also the gamble affect when using food where if you have practised sufficiently using food as a motivator then practise without food on occasion and you will see how your dog will still do the desired behaviour yet not receive food. They will not feel tricked by this they will just do it because the learnt behaviour has previously resulted in a food reward so there will be no hard feelings quite the opposite as they will be grateful for the opportunity. This is where their opportunist instinct kicks in they will happily do the task on the basis that there is an opportunity for food. Try to keep the treats small and well earned.
Ball motivation can also be interpreted as prey drive, this stems from a dogs natural instinct to hunt as part of the survivalist instincts they possess. So something small and moving fast is usually very stimulating for a dog. Also it is something that they find very controllable that is fun and satisfying. This is where as I explained previously when applied to a learnt behaviour it can be a fantastic reward to encourage the behaviour to continue. Some of the best trained dogs in the world are trained on a ball as a motivator. Dogs that are trained to use there noses for a purpose are all trained using a ball as a motivator, these include search and rescue dogs, detection dogs and assistant dogs. The reason that these dogs are not trained using food as a motivator is that food is a natural distraction to the task they are carrying out. If you use food as a motivator in these roles then the dog will likely self motivate and seek out food instead of drugs or a missing person. A lot of dogs actually fail selection for the job they are bread to do because they lack ball drive. If a dog is bred for protection work then one of the key tests on selection is ball drive because if a dog has no ball drive it is highly likely not to be good at correct protection work.
Affection is more accurately described as energy. This is probably my favourite and most satisfying of the motivators that dogs give us. I described affection as energy because dogs feed off our energy and a big part of a dogs mindset is to control energy. So for me when 2 energies are aligned it is a great feeling and if the affection is given correctly then it is a great motivator. This can be a heartfelt affirmative good boy or good girl through to excitement or play down to some meaningful fuss . When this is used as a reward for doing something correctly or as part of teaching our dog something new it is always something we have in our possession. Unlike a ball or a food motivator which we can often find ourselves without we always have affection at our disposal. Many dogs find the motivation of affection more than enough as long as it is genuinely heartfelt.
Very rarely a dog maybe so shut down or have such a lack of trust of humans that they do not respond to these motivators. When this happens I have found that using well balanced dogs to teach the dog how to be motivated and that it is ok to be motivated. Then it is a patient journey.