FDSA Calendar

Week 1 – Topic 3 – When food becomes part of the cueing picture.

As we discussed in Topic 2, food is innately attention grabbing. However, its presence can do more than draw our dog’s attention away from other tasks. Food can intentionally or unintentionally become part of the cueing picture itself.

Sometimes food becomes a general cue that engagement and responsiveness will pay off at this time. In other situations, its presence, location, or movement helps generate a specific behaviour. When that happens, the food may also overshadow other cues we intended our dog to learn.

When food becomes part of the cue that work is about to begin.

Sometimes the presence or location of food doesn’t cue one specific behaviour. Instead, it becomes a general cue that tells our dog this is a time when offering behaviours may result in reinforcement.

Putting on our treat pouch, picking up a treat container, reaching into our pocket, or simply holding food in our hand can all become part of that picture.

For some dogs, this may result in them becoming immediately more active and beginning to offer behaviours they believe may give them access to the food. They may sit, lie down, or move into heel position, or they may simply start to spin, bark, paw at us, jump up, or rapidly cycle through a range of different responses.

From our dog’s perspective, this can make perfect sense. If the appearance of food has repeatedly predicted that offering behaviours will result in reinforcement, then the food itself can become a cue that guessing at this time may pay off.

The other side of that learning is just as important. If the presence of food tells our dog that work is available, then its absence can also become information.

Our dog may learn that when we’re not wearing a treat pouch, holding food, or setting out a treat container, there’s little reason to engage with us, offer behaviours, or respond to our cues.

If we have accidentally created a pattern where the presence of food means “remain engaged with us and responsive to our cues” and its absence means “switch off”, it can become a problem when we later want our dog to begin working or remain fully engaged without obvious evidence that food is available.

Food directly generating behaviours and/or overshadowing our intended cues.

Food can influence more than whether our dog is engaged and ready to work. Its location or movement can also help produce the specific behaviour we’re teaching.

Our dog might move forward towards a pre-placed reward, follow a lure into a down, or maintain heel position by following food held beside our body.

In each case, we may see the behaviour we wanted, but that doesn’t necessarily tell us what information our dog is using to perform it.

This is where two related things can happen:

• The food may be directly generating the behaviour. Our dog is moving towards it, following it, or maintaining a position in relation to it.
• The food may overshadow our intended cue. We may be saying “go”, “down”, or “heel”, but if the food is the most salient and meaningful part of the picture, our dog may not even notice those words.

As long as the food remains in the picture, the behaviour can look reliable. This can make it difficult to tell how well our intended cue has actually been learned until we ask for the behaviour without the presence of the food.

The following examples show how these two factors can occur together.

Example 1: Pre-placed rewards

Imagine an agility dog learning to maintain forward focus and forward movement regardless of the location or speed of the handler.

A common setup involves a straight line of jumps with a food dish or remote feeder positioned at the end.

The handler releases their dog with a verbal cue such as “go, go, go”, and their dog runs directly down the line of jumps towards the food. Over time, the handler may begin adding a “lead out”, moving in other directions, or remaining completely stationary, and their dog may continue driving forward reliably.

From the handler’s perspective, this can look as though their dog has learned that “go, go, go” means to continue forward over the jumps regardless of handler movement.

However, if the dish or remote feeder has remained in the picture throughout that training, it may be doing much more than providing a reward at the end. It may also be the cue to maintain forward focus and movement.

The dog may not have noticed the verbal cue, or they may have learned that “go, go, go” means “run to the food”, rather than “maintain forward focus and movement”.

In these cases, when we remove the pre-placed food, the behaviour may suddenly fall apart. Our dog may hesitate, turn back towards us, bark, spin, or begin offering other previously reinforced behaviours.

This change gives us useful information: the dish or feeder was an important part of the cueing picture that guided the behaviour.

Example 2: Luring

Luring is another clear example of how food can generate a behaviour while also overshadowing other information.

If we move food in front of our dog’s nose and they follow it into a down, we can see the movement we want. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean our dog has learned to perform a down in response to our hand signal or verbal cue. They may simply be following the food.

A useful comparison is driving somewhere while following GPS directions. We can successfully arrive at our destination without really noticing the route. If someone asks us to make the same journey the next day without the GPS, we may discover that we have no idea where to go.

We completed the journey, but we didn’t necessarily learn the route.

Something similar can happen with a lure. Our dog may successfully arrive in the down position while paying relatively little attention to the other information we hoped would guide that movement in the future.

Holding food in our hand whilst heeling can result in the same outcome. Our dog may walk in a beautiful heel position because they’re following the food. We may be saying “heel” as we walk off, but the behaviour alone doesn’t tell us whether that word has acquired meaning.

If the food is already guiding our dog’s position and movement, our verbal cue may not even be noticed by our dog as relevant information.

Example 3: Reverse luring

Reverse luring can create a slightly different version of the same problem.

Our dog may appear to be performing a very good duration behaviour while we hold food in our hand, or whilst they stare at food in a dish in front of them.

However, their stillness may depend on that food being visible. They may have learned that remaining still is what eventually results in access to it. In this case, the food is directly cueing the duration behaviour.

Whilst learning is occurring, it doesn’t necessarily mean our dog can maintain the same behaviour in response to our intended cue when the food is absent.

Key points.

• Luring, reverse luring, pre-placed rewards, and remote feeders aren’t inherently problematic; they are all very useful training tools. What matters is recognising the role they play at each stage of learning and systematically fading our dog’s reliance on them as we develop their understanding of the intended cues and behaviours.
• If food is already visible or being used to direct our dog before they perform a behaviour, a successful response doesn’t necessarily indicate that they understand our intended cue or that the behaviour is fully learned. The food may be generating the behaviour, our intended cue may be contributing, or our dog may not have noticed our cue as relevant information.
• A useful check is whether our dog can still reliably perform each behaviour in response to our intended cues when food is no longer visibly present ahead of time. If the behaviour falls apart, the food, or the setup associated with it, is still an important part of the cueing picture. That gives us information about what still needs teaching. Our goal is for our dog to receive the cue (without the presence of visible food), perform the behaviour, and then have the reward appear.