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Carrots and sticks

 

I was walking my dog the other day, and as he often does, he picked up a stick to play with in the park, he tossed it around for a while, chewed on it, then he carried it along with us for a  while before abandoning it  by the side of the road. Just after that we saw a carrot, an untouched full long carrot, lying in the grass. Someone must have dropped it out of their grocery bag. He saw it, sniffed at is, and decided for whatever reason; he was not interested in the carrot.

Is he an opposite? He likes sticks and is impartial to carrots.

I could not help but think about how silly that was, and about the Carrot and stick.

Who has not heard of the carrot and stick method of teaching?

Offering a reward for good behavior or threatening punishment for bad.

It is used in business, in families, with children, and in dog training, well, everywhere.

Some people are motivated to do something by the reward as a result, and some from the fear of the punishment.

I don’t know what dogs think, but I don’t like the fear of the punishments method.

Dog trainers don’t seem to be in harmony on this.

Some prefer little or no carrots, and always a threat of stick, and others, say carrots are the only way. No sticks.

If you have a dog you may have taught it something by using food as the reward (the carrot).

It worked for my dog. Well, not in every case, but in teaching him to sit.

I used the hand sign sit command and exaggerated it to my version by putting both my hands up in front of my chest, together ( holding on to a treat)

I had shown him sit a few times first, by putting him in place.

I used the voice command, and combined it with the hand sign.

Now, he sits every time I put my hands up close to my chest, even if I have no treat or had not intended him to sit. If he meets a new person, he will often sit in front of them.

I rewarded him with a cookie many times after a sit. Yet what was just as or even more important to me, and I hope to him, was the praise he received from me, as I am genuinely pleased, still, every time he sits. He does not get up and walk away in a huff if he does not get the cookie. He does it now, because he wants to, and to please me. 

Ok, I am sure he maybe still hopes there will be a cookie in it sometimes.

 

Basically carrots and sticks work to some degree, yet no one can expect results using just those.

 

When I got home, just for fun I looked for training information using the carrot and stick. The list was too long, but here are a few interesting articles facts, books and web sites to refer to.

Here is an article in agreement with the view that a dog wants to please us.

https://www.pawprintgenetics.com/blog/2014/01/24/training-carrots-sticks-drive-and-enjoyment/

Carrots and Sticks: Principles of Animal Training. This is a book by Paul McGreevy, Robert A. Boakes, Cambridge University Press, 2007 - Psychology .

http://www.thrivingcanine.com/beyond_carrots_sticks

This is Chad Culp, and he talks about the intrinsic value.

He talks about the carrot people, and the stick people, and suggests, “what about being a dog person”.

I agree with him in that he says a dog works for the joy of it, because they like us and want to please us.

Also, they behave well because they need structure and leadership and are wired to follow the leader.

http://www.urbandawgs.com/divided_profession.html

This one talks about the different view points, and appears to also be in favour of carrots rather than sticks.

Yet my dog, all he wanted to do was play with the stick, and he ignored the carrot.

 



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