Susan Garrett has a list of Reinforcers on her website and encourages her students to create their own, in order of most reinforcing to least reinforcing. And since she is apparently the guru of dog agility and dog training in general, who am I to argue. So in a very particular order (serious, hours of deliberation!) here is a semi-complete list of everything Gaius finds reinforcing (List of distractions to come):
OVERTHRESHOLD (These are things Gaius finds SO reinforcing that he can't pay attention enough to be useful during training, but they are still reinforcing. Everything here will end up on the distraction list. Aka: the pain in my butt list)
Prey:
1) Birds (Especially big ones, like geese and ducks)
2) Rats/ Squirrels/ Rabbits/ Small mammals
3) Cats (We've talked about this)
4) Gracie (less exciting cause she's always there)
5) Balloons/ Pillows (I have a cute video for this but I'll save that for another post)
6) Lazar Pointers (Another cute video for another time)
7) Water and Swimming (Especially if there are ducks. I'll go more into this when I do my recall/failures with recalls post
8) Sticks clacking together or against something else (ex. People playing drums (We lost a rock band drum set this way), fake sword fighting... ect.)
9) Fence Fighting (Ugh, he's generally indifferent to dogs unless they are behind a fence, then its a big old barking party)
10) Greeting people he loves. (Be careful of overexcited Dachshunds, you might get peed on)
11) Barking (at anything)
REGULAR REINFORCERS (These are things that could potentially be used in training)
12) Clicker/Shaping/Learning tricks (I really think he'd do this without food. He loves it)
Food:
13) Novel Food (Anything new is exciting)
14) Chicken
15)Steak
16) Other types of fresh meat
17) Meat Baby food
18) Liverwort and Tuna treats made by Georgie
19) Hot Dog
20) Anything you are eating
21) Zukes Treats
22) Hard Cookie Dog Treats (milkbones... ect)
23) Cheetos
24) Kibbles
25) Cat Poop (yuck!)
26) Cheese
27) Low fat String Cheese (He's gotten A LOT of this and he's pretty sick of the stuff)
28) Rawhide /Pig Ears
29) Carrots
30) Other Types of Veggies (Fruit he usually spits out and then gives me nasty looks)
31) Bread Products
32)Freedom (ie, being let offleash/ let out the door/ let out of a crate
Toys:
33) Novel Toys (Mommy, buy me new things! Spoiled dog.)
34) Sticks too big for him to carry
35) Regular Sticks
36) Frisbees
37)Bouncy balls (The kind you get in line at the super market out of little machines. Dangerous, he only got these once and I was scared he'd swallow it. Never again)
38) Tennis Balls (See picture. Especially the little ones I can't pry out of his mouth)
39) Rabbit Fur Squeaky Mice
40) Used underwear/ Used socks (Gross, but its the g-ds honest truth)
41) Pens (We sneak off and chew these up when no one is looking)
42) Squeaky toys(The higher pitched the better)
43)Tug toys with real fur (Expensive damn tastes)
44) Other toys made of real fur
45) Stitch (That's right, from the disney movie. Its his favorite stuffed animal)
46) Stuffed animals bigger than he is
47) Other stuffed animals
48) Water bottles
49) Regular tugs
50) His obedience dumbbell
51)Luffas (Like for the shower)
52) smaller boring stuffed animals
53) Plastic Cups (Another thing to steal and chew in secret)
54) Rolls of Toliet Paper (He's sort of meh to these, but if one is there)
55) Being held (He's always been one to beg to be picked up. Silly purse dog)
56) Recalls (Weirdo, he LOVES recalls. But only in non distracting environments)
57) Ability to get on things (The bed, the couch)
58) Agility tunnels (must dogs love tunnels)
59) Verbal Praise (pretty meh to this)
60) Physical Praise: Petting/ Scratching/ Patting (He downright doesn't want this during training at times)
61) Hands on play like wrestling (He likes it well enough at home, but not for training)
62) Playing/ Greeting other dogs (He's very socially laid back generally)
So I could come up with 62 things my dog finds rewarding. How many things can you come up with?
OVERTHRESHOLD (These are things Gaius finds SO reinforcing that he can't pay attention enough to be useful during training, but they are still reinforcing. Everything here will end up on the distraction list. Aka: the pain in my butt list)
Prey:
1) Birds (Especially big ones, like geese and ducks)
2) Rats/ Squirrels/ Rabbits/ Small mammals
3) Cats (We've talked about this)
4) Gracie (less exciting cause she's always there)
5) Balloons/ Pillows (I have a cute video for this but I'll save that for another post)
6) Lazar Pointers (Another cute video for another time)
7) Water and Swimming (Especially if there are ducks. I'll go more into this when I do my recall/failures with recalls post
8) Sticks clacking together or against something else (ex. People playing drums (We lost a rock band drum set this way), fake sword fighting... ect.)
9) Fence Fighting (Ugh, he's generally indifferent to dogs unless they are behind a fence, then its a big old barking party)
10) Greeting people he loves. (Be careful of overexcited Dachshunds, you might get peed on)
11) Barking (at anything)
REGULAR REINFORCERS (These are things that could potentially be used in training)
12) Clicker/Shaping/Learning tricks (I really think he'd do this without food. He loves it)
Food:
13) Novel Food (Anything new is exciting)
14) Chicken
15)Steak
16) Other types of fresh meat
17) Meat Baby food
18) Liverwort and Tuna treats made by Georgie
19) Hot Dog
20) Anything you are eating
21) Zukes Treats
22) Hard Cookie Dog Treats (milkbones... ect)
23) Cheetos
24) Kibbles
25) Cat Poop (yuck!)
26) Cheese
27) Low fat String Cheese (He's gotten A LOT of this and he's pretty sick of the stuff)
28) Rawhide /Pig Ears
29) Carrots
30) Other Types of Veggies (Fruit he usually spits out and then gives me nasty looks)
31) Bread Products
32)Freedom (ie, being let offleash/ let out the door/ let out of a crate
Toys:
33) Novel Toys (Mommy, buy me new things! Spoiled dog.)
34) Sticks too big for him to carry
35) Regular Sticks
36) Frisbees
37)Bouncy balls (The kind you get in line at the super market out of little machines. Dangerous, he only got these once and I was scared he'd swallow it. Never again)
38) Tennis Balls (See picture. Especially the little ones I can't pry out of his mouth)
39) Rabbit Fur Squeaky Mice
40) Used underwear/ Used socks (Gross, but its the g-ds honest truth)
41) Pens (We sneak off and chew these up when no one is looking)
42) Squeaky toys(The higher pitched the better)
43)Tug toys with real fur (Expensive damn tastes)
44) Other toys made of real fur
45) Stitch (That's right, from the disney movie. Its his favorite stuffed animal)
46) Stuffed animals bigger than he is
47) Other stuffed animals
48) Water bottles
49) Regular tugs
50) His obedience dumbbell
51)Luffas (Like for the shower)
52) smaller boring stuffed animals
53) Plastic Cups (Another thing to steal and chew in secret)
54) Rolls of Toliet Paper (He's sort of meh to these, but if one is there)
55) Being held (He's always been one to beg to be picked up. Silly purse dog)
56) Recalls (Weirdo, he LOVES recalls. But only in non distracting environments)
57) Ability to get on things (The bed, the couch)
58) Agility tunnels (must dogs love tunnels)
59) Verbal Praise (pretty meh to this)
60) Physical Praise: Petting/ Scratching/ Patting (He downright doesn't want this during training at times)
61) Hands on play like wrestling (He likes it well enough at home, but not for training)
62) Playing/ Greeting other dogs (He's very socially laid back generally)
So I could come up with 62 things my dog finds rewarding. How many things can you come up with?
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