Just a query out of interest: most of the posts I've read on the forum talk about training using treats but I understand that gundog training positively discourages this approach. Does this method not work with gundogs or is there another reason?

Kanelch

I think it's not about gundogs per se (as many of them can be greedy beasts!) but more about the type of training you do when training a dog for working on a shoot or other field work.

I'm very willing to be corrected but I think that as these dogs are expected to work sometimes at great distance from the handler that treats aren't terribly helpful.  These dogs are bred for the tasks they perform and you'd want to encourage their natural behaviours.  Calling them back to you for a reward will just inhibit them.

That said, I'm sure that many of the early stages are broken down into components, and taught and rewarded with treats (although not always food ones). 

A lot of a gundogs behaviours are so enjoyable anyway they are self rewarding (hunting for example). Gundogs on the whole are very susceptible to verbal praise often a high pitch sends them in a frenzy which is enough of a reward. Extra motivation in the way of food is not normally needed.

One of the main areas gundog trainers tend not to use food is the retreive as they do not want to dog to expect a treat so risk spitting the article out before its back in the owners hands eg live bird.

I also agree with dogs a babe as starting exercises such as the basic obedience and introducing the whistle commands can be taught with food rewards.

Some working dogs love to work so much they don't need any other reward, that could be one reason. Another is old fallacies about treats not being good. I have bred two dogs that are working as security dogs -one does sniffer work including drugs, the other protection work, so much the same as police dogs. These two are currently just 17 months old but have already been actively working for months. Their owners told me they traiend them as I suggested (with kindness, rewards and NO force) and they used hot dogs for a lot to start with, then switched the rewards to toys. And "everyone else" in the security business was laughing at them, saying security dogs should not be given treats. But they are great people, are qualified to train police dogs, and were prepared to do what was best for the dogs and would give good results, whatever that happened to be!

Mine are all working gundogs, I do use treats at the beginning of their training, it helps to teach the basics and to keep them focussed on me but once they've got the hang of this I start to phase them out and by the time they're about 6 months old or so I never use food (as an aside I never use it when teaching retrieves at any stage as I don't want the dog to start preemptively spitting out the dummy/bird they're carrying). On a practical level it's neither practical or possible to be going around on shoots or at field tests with pockets full of treats and as lot of their work is done at a distance as said and they very much have to use their own initiative I don't want them coming back to me expecting food.

I don't expect them to work out of the goodness of their hearts though, praise from me is very motivating for them as is getting to do what they love doing. As Dude Dog has said the work is extremely rewarding in itself, there's nothing else that even comes close to it for them, if I offered my dogs a whole roast chicken when they were working they'd ignore it in favour of getting a retrieve. In the training stages I move on from treats to play with me, tennis balls etc. and that becomes their motivation and once they're in full training and actually out on shoots then that's all the motivation they need.

Thanks for all the replies: I feel much better informed! One more thing, though: if you start training a puppy with treats in a standard basic obedience class, can you then move onto gundog training, minus treats,  or do you have to start as you mean to go on?

Yes you can move onto gundog training after that and phase out the treats. I never rely purely on food for training, even as small pups it's a mixture of food, praise and play - me getting down on the ground with them and making an eejit of myself really gets them going   You want to build a strong bond between you and the pup so they're not just viewing you as a vending machine and when you start to phase out the food they don't even really notice because they're still getting loads of praise and play and they're focussing on you because you're fun and interesting - I mix up my pups' training a lot and make it mostly play so it's just a big unpredictable game for them.

I like the description of not being seen as a vending machine lol

I have never used treats in my training. Not sure why but thought that I was the centre of attention rather than food so made sense to me

I use what the dog likes best. If thats food rewards I use it, why make life hard for yourself trying to reward a dog with something th DOG doesnt find rewarding?

But I also use verbal praise, physical contact for dogs who like that, toys and some behaviours lend them selves to being rewarded by being allowed to do other behaviours (the reward for a distance 'wait' is being sent to get the toy I want retrieving, for example).

I am my dogs centre of attention but thats because I provide rewarding things and im generally interesting to be around.

As for changing methods - I find its easy to do this within positive reward based training, it might take a bit of planning and forethought but its pretty easy to do.

Changing a dog from positive reward to positive punishment, or vice versa is harder because they ask different things of a dog. positive reward has the dog actively seeking to be rewarded - positive punishment has the dog actively avoiding punishment. You really will struggle to do both at the same time and its pretty evident in dogs who have been trained with positive punishment, they take some time to 'dare' to try out new behaviours (Whereas dogs who havent been trained this way will, for example, take to free shaping with a clicker a lot faster).

I start all my basic training with puppies using treats, and often clicker methods as well. All my babies go through Good Citizen. As training develops for the field the treats are not needed to same degree, as others have said the reward of being able to "work" is often motivator enough. I do however have small bisciuts in my pocket all the time, and even on shoot days the dogs will get the odd intermittant reward especially if they have taken a direction well in the face of distraction. 

K

I have never used treats in my training. Not sure why but thought that I was the centre of attention rather than food so made sense to me

Lots of people think of dogs in terms of the lassie concept - that they shouldn't need rewards because we should just be the centre of their world regardless and they will do our bidding for us .  Dogs don't really work that way - they do something because it's rewarding and if something isn't rewarding it is much less likely to happen again.  If you have dogs that just enjoy working and going out for walks and having human contact then that is great and you are still rewarding them with these things and that is what makes you the centre of their world not just because it's 'you' so no different than if your dog is not so motivated by those things and you use food as a reward, there is something that makes you interesting to them.

My guys are also incredibly focussed on me, but it is because I use the rewards they love and like theemx says I use what is rewarding to each individual dog to make life easier for myself - so for one, she thinks I'm fab because she gets to chase stuff, which is her biggest reward and that always happens through me, plus her second motivator is food and I am the one who feeds her, normal food and treats.  For another I am worth listening to because she gets to play tuggy with me or having something really high value to eat as a reward.  For another, she doesn't really have a favourite she just likes lots of things and gets bored easily so for her, meeting other dogs, chasing a ball, having goodies, going for a really good sniff area all used as rewards because any one thing would bore her and would lose it's value if over used.

Collies for example often don't need mush outside reinforcers for working because they just love to be working and will rpeat behaviours over and over just for the hell of it - it's not just about doing it for the person though it's because they find working with people and working generally rewarding so looks like they are just doing it for the love of their person.

One things I will put extra effort into making rewarding is food because it can be so useful for training, particularly if you have a fear aggressive dog and are trying to desensitise them as it is so useful in terms of repititions and timing of the reward but there are plenty of wys of being rewarding to your dog without using food.  I also find it easy to swap rewards from one thing to another for dogs and also find the reward very dependant on the situation, so often for the initial teaching will use food but then when I want more speed for example will use a more adrenaline fueled reward such as chasing something.