Do you wonder what’s your dog’s favorite food? Or favorite reinforcer of another type when food isn’t enough? Have you unsuccessfully tried to use food toys filled with peanut butter to work on challenging situations? Are you starting to believe that your dog might just not be food motivated when exposing him to more complex experiences and/or environments? Do you have a hard time identifying what your dog really wants?
The value of a reinforcement is often proportionally inverse to how challenging is a situation, and there are not only individual preferences, but also different perceptions of how challenging a determine stimulus can be.
Through a “treat tasting” you can objectively measure which foods are within the top five of your dog’s favorites, and you can successfully and strategically use them to work on different situations, not only enhancing the counter-conditioning process, but also increasing the dog’s motivation.
And by learning how to correctly use techniques such as desensitization and counter-conditioning, and what food or reinforcer are appropriate for each case and situation you can avoid the risk of poisoning food, and therefore increase the likelihood of success.
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