This morning I listened to an MSNBC interview with a guy named Jim Cavanaugh on the Tennessee explosion- he described a Federal training program for explosive detection dogs. I did not hear this clearly but I think he stated that 'they never eat again in their lives if they don’t find explosives - imagine their motivation.‘ Is this real? Surely we have better ways to train animals than this kind of ‘motivation’. Anybody familiar with this or did I mis-hear?
I’m sure he was joking but animal training is rewards based, some combination of food, praise, petting along with using a clicker or other sound to signal proper performance.
This article from the Smithsonian paints a significantly less harsh picture:
The article also mentions that the dogs want to please (because they are dogs, of course). Technically they are training the dogs with food rewards, and so if the dog doesn’t find the odor that they are training for then the dog doesn’t get the reward. But from the dog’s point of view it’s more of a reward system than a threat of not eating type of system. The dogs do it for the reward and to fulfill their desire to please, not because they are afraid of starvation.
All dog training systems of any value are only positive feedback systems. Punishment (negative feedback) are never, ever, ever a part of it.
You can certainly get results with negative feedback systems but I don’t think anyone who trains dogs for these jobs does that.
I worked with a bunch of bomb dogs in the past. Food was never part of the training. Some programs may use food rewards but I never saw it. They all had special toys that only came out after they worked.
A colleague of mine adopted a retired bomb sniff dog from our time in Iraq. The dog’s reward for doing a good job was a special red ball that came down only when he did a good job. Their UPS guy and postal carrier got to be friends with them and let the dog search their vehicles when they came to the house, years later the dog still had to sniff every vehicle coming on their farm.
In my experience “never eat again in their lives” in dog means “has not in eaten in 10 minutes”
Short attention spans can be a good thing. Or not.
To heck with dogs and @Tripler s! Get a rat!
And dolphins and sea lions are trained to locate mines.
No, they don’t disable the mines and get themselves blown up. Dolphins are waaaaaay to expensive to let that happen. When they find a mine, they place a marker by it.
Allegedly, dolphins can find a dime buried in the muck.
Your dog had good self control. Our dog ate something from her bowl, turned around, and then gave us a face telling us she was starving.
When we raised guide dogs food treats were never used as part of training, but since then they have changed strategies and now use food for positive feedback. We used pats and “good girls” for positive feedback.
So much for job security.
Tripler
“Awww, rats!”
Even in cases where food is used as a reward in training a dog, the dog’s usually not actually doing it for the food per se: The human giving the dog a bit of kibble is mostly significant in that it’s a concrete expression of the human’s approval. A tiny morsel is usually just as effective as a full meal, since either one is “one reward”. That wouldn’t be the case if it were all about eating.
Some & some? It is a small amount, but a good percentage of dogs will do things for “treat” that they wouldn’t do for other rewards. “Come” is a big one. And dogs can differentiate types of treats, the usual reward level and the special stuff that only comes out for big good dogs. Liver & fish are good for that, so maybe it’s the extra stink.
It’s been a few years so I’m not sure what the puppyraisers use, but our guide dog school definitely switched from praise & clicker to praise & treat. Presumably the Labs work better that way; they’re almost always food obsessed. (One of the struggles is getting them to not grab any foodlike objects while working)
Golden Retrievers too. See the fun starting at 0:50 . . .
Funny. As part of training our golden was supposed to race to the finish line where there was a hot dog and ignore it and go across the finish line. Which she did - and then doubled back and at the hot dog.
My neighbor was training his new Lab puppies for duck retrieval. The dogs are just supposed to mouth the duck, not crush it, when bringing it back. I’d go over to the fence to yak with him while the dogs were happy to “practice” on my hand, wrist, forearm, elbow. I’d end up covered in Labrador drool. Apologies from the neighbor; but it was all good and washable.
With a soft enough mouth, Labs can sometimes snag living (very dumb) birds. And then there’s using knee as headrest with much hopeful drool.