JE-UK

With food rewards, what you describe is two different things. I use food as "payment" when training the dog to DO something (I don't work for free, and don't really expect my dog to either) ... that is "operant conditioning".

Using food to help change how a dog FEELS about something, i.e. using food to set up good associations with things he finds fearful, is called "classical conditioning".

The terms don't really matter, but it's useful to distinguish the two in your head.

In the case you describe, with the trainer having you reward frequently, that could have been either operant (reward the dog for keeping his attention on you in the face of a big distraction) or classical (use food to set up a different association if he is maniacal because he's fearful). In either case, it sounds like the trainer set up a situation with too much stimulation to start with. Starting farther away may have given the dog the chance to succeed.

The clicker is a reward marker. It means "that, THAT thing you just did, that earns you a treat". Brain scans have shown that a very distinctive sound, like a clicker, works better than your voice, but certainly you can use your voice. I use "YESSS!" when I don't have a clicker on me.

As for distance training, the reward doesn't have to be food. I use a toy in some of my training, and with our agility training, the opportunity to do more is a reward in itself. Probably the same for herding.

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"Yes is so much important than No." Dominique Barbier

fjm

I am using food to teach my neighbour's terrier that it is not necessary to growl and lunge at every dog that passes us - and it works. The key is to keep her below threshold, so that she can concentrate on doing what I ask - "Watch me" - and get rewarded for it. It's a bit tricky, as I can't control the distance between us and the other dog, but it is very effective.

But the issue is at bottom about trying to use rewards rather than punishments, and reognising that it is the dog that defines what is rewarding, and what is punishing (and here speaks one who got very, VERY stern with the whole family of dogs and cats when they woke her up for the third time squabbling last night, so I do resort to aversives on occasion, especially when sleep deprived!).

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To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden,
where doing nothing was not boring- it was peace.

~ Milan Kundera

patalina

I used food to successfully teach Louis tricks and reward appropriate behaviour. While I don't adhere to CM's method of dominance and think a lot of his techniques are not appropriate, I much prefer positive training to dominance theory, I have found that the "shhh" sound that he uses does snap my puppy out of certain behaviours. My favorite trainer, which I'm sure everyone here has heard of, is Dr. Ian Dunbar

Check him out if you haven't already: