Category: Common Problems, Advanced Stuff ¤ Author: Shirley Chong ¤ Title: Proofing Food ¤ Christy asks if anyone has been able to reliably proof food--noting that it's a concern not only for K-9's but also for service dogs. Of course! With my current two dogs, I haven't gone very far with it--never needed to. But it can be done. I just wrote a loooong post about this for another list. Basically (briefly), it's the first thing I teach any dog. I show them a treat, close my hand around it and let the dog try to get to the treat. When the dog gives up, I click and open my hand. Pretty quickly, I can attach a cue to it: Leave it! When the dog is reliably doing the Leave It from food lying in my open hand (I'm ready to close my hand very quickly if needed! ) in many different locations, then I put the food on the chair next to me, or on the floor (since I can't sit on the floor, I use treats I can slap my foot over quickly!), on a coffee table or just on my leg. It's a new situation, so almost all dogs go back to kindergarten and try to pry my hand off the treat. They do, however, usually move up the learning curve much faster this second time. I raise my hand off the food a quarter inch at a time. Pretty soon, the dog can resist diving on the food even if my hand appears to be out of the picture. The next stage uses what I call "food-like items." A food-like item is something that smells good but is not (easily) edible. The big unfinished wooden apples sold in craft stores absorb scent nicely, so I rub them with a clove of garlic or with meat juices. Big metal teaballs (the sort with the screw top) can be loaded with a treat. PVC pipe can be stuffed with something gooshy (drill holes along the length of the pipe to get more release of scent). Depending on the dog, you could also fake dropping stuff in the kitchen that you KNOW the dog won't eat (like lemon or orange peels--careful because some dogs will eat them). I plant food-like items in the environment when the dog can't see me do it (this is a big step). I let the dog discover the food-like item and keep a careful eye out--with some work, a determined dog can do some damage to the food-like items but most of them discover that they aren't exactly what they appear and give up on them pretty quickly. As the dog gets more and more reliable about leaving food-like items, the items start to become more and more like food. I found some little nylon pouches at a camping store that present something of a barrier. Another trick is to use a LARGE treat and wind wire around it--the treat has to be large enough that the dog cannot possibly gulp it down in one bite. When you reach the stage of teaching the dog to leave the food-like items you've planted in the environment you start to vary the reinforcer. Sometimes the reinforcer comes from the item (open the teaball or use a pencil to unload the pipe). Sometimes the reinforcer comes from you. Sometimes what is in the food-like item is relatively boring (ordinary kibble) and what you have is wonderful. After the dog is doing the Leave It reliably with food-like items planted in the environment, then start to vary what you do. Start off by telling the dog to Leave it, then give the dog a different, very well learned command--like Sit. Then click and treat. Vary how much you have the dog do before you click and treat--sometimes you c/t right away, sometimes after one further command, sometimes after two further commands, etc. All of the above can easily be tweaked to suit specific circumstances--for instance, you might decide NEVER to attach a cue. Or you might decide to teach the dog to give you an alert cue (like whapping your foot with a front paw) to alert you the presence of potentially edible stuff. I see this as the most basic lesson I can teach a dog. Dogs are wired to go after things they see that they want, especially easily available things. Most dogs are on the See Food Diet--see food, eat food! It's not easy for the dog to learn to see food and then wait for permission to eat food. Learning to look at something delicious without automatically diving on it is the first lesson in self control. I cannot teach a dog self control--all I can do is set up things so they teach themselves. A very common learning stage is for the dog to turn their head away from the temptation and gaze off into the distance. Handlers often make the mistake of thinking the dog hasn't noticed the temptation. NOT LIKELY!!! What is going on is the dog is saying "if I look at that food, I can't trust myself not to dive on it, so I won't look." M. Shirley Chong The Well Mannered Dog