High Value? Or High Stakes...
- Sara Seymour
- Feb 18
- 3 min read
Reinforcement strategies are one of my absolute passions when it comes to dog training; thinking about what to use, and when with each dog. It's a rabbit hole I went down nearly a decade ago, when it became clear that what I was doing with Ripley wasn't working. I talked about this in another blog post - Tug Isn't The Be All and End All.
With Peak, I’m now having to consider a much more specific issue: what happens when the potential reward becomes too high stakes? Peak is a dog with BIG toy feelings. When he first came to me, I had to work on building his stamina to work for food, because toys were of WAY more interest to him.
Where this shows up most is at agility competitions; I would play with him a little in the queue and then allow him to hold onto his ball until just before we went into the ring. Then I would trade the toy for a treat (the fact that he couldn't let go should really have served as more of a red flag 🚩🙈) I would show him that I still had another toy available, and get him set up to run.
We had start line issues for a lot of last year. He just could not hold his stay on the start line. I got creative about some of our starts to get around this, but I knew I needed to change something, because he can hold a stay perfectly well! This wasn't a training issue - it was an emotional one.
Over the past few months I've got right down into the detail of what motivates Peak. What's most important to him, but even more importantly, how best to use that information to support him in training. In the video below you'll see him learning about some of this.
A few weeks ago I made quite a radical decision. I'm no longer going to use Peak's highest value reward prior to his agility run, and will likely delay giving it after runs too.
The reason? The ball was making the whole game too high stakes.
He was going into the ring in completely the wrong mindset, carrying those big ball feelings onto the start line. He wasn’t really connected to me - he was connected to the toy. By using food games instead, he can enter the ring in a much lower state of arousal. He’s calmer. More able to think. More able to hold his start line.
It's early days, and I've only tried our new techniques in one training session and one competition. However, his start lines in that competition were the BEST we've had in a while by a long shot 💕 Check out the video below to see a bit of our pre-run routine, and then his two lovely start lines 😁
Next time you find your dog struggling with a known behaviour, it’s worth considering whether the reinforcement you’re using is truly helping - or whether it’s actually raising the emotional stakes too high.
Of course, there’s always the option to work towards your dog being able to perform with that high-value reward in the picture. But the first step is recognising what effect it’s having. Sometimes the most powerful reinforcement isn’t the most exciting one - it’s the one that helps your dog stay present, connected and able to think.
