Rate of Reinforcement: Speed Up Your Dog Training in Just 3 Minutes
Let’s talk about something that can seriously level up your training sessions: rate of reinforcement and how you deliver the treat.
What's the rate of reinforcement?
It simply means how often you're rewarding your dog during training. Think of it as the “pace” of your feedback. A high reinforcement rate helps during shaping. I use timed trials to improve my own techniques and find innovative ways to speed up the training process. I might set aside one to five minutes and count the number of treats I am going to use. When the timer goes off, the session is over. This is a fun way to train new skills quickly by using strategic movement throughout the session.
Learning to back up onto a platform.
In the video I’m training a dog to back up onto a platform. To help her succeed, I use two powerful tools:
A very high rate of reinforcement of about 15 plus treats per minute.
Strategic delivery which involves placing and tossing the food so that it encourages the dog to land into the desired position.
Here’s a breakdown of how I approach treat delivery quantity.
When shaping something new with a timer I aim for 10–15 treats/minute. While that sounds like a lot, sometimes it's even more. The timer means that I'm trying to get the dog to offer a specific movement before the timer goes off.
Really rapid shaping (like in this session)? I go up to even more treats per minute. While drills or maintenance might require only 1–2 treats/minute, or even none if the dog is fluent, shaping something new is a different case.
I want to add an important note about this so it's not misunderstood. The amount of treats I mentioned is for a specific type of session. You wouldn't feed your dog this many treats for longer sessions and certainly not for maintenance training. Also, these sessions constitute a small amount of training. You should always have a plan for reducing treats if you try this type of session. Once a behavior is complete, I want the dog to do it on cue without any treats if requested.
Try it yourself!
Set aside just 3 minutes. Grab about 90 pieces of kibble. That’s only about 1/3 to 1/2 cup, depending on the size of the food (most kibble cups contain 200–300 pieces). You can even mix in a few high-value treats if your dog needs extra motivation. You won't use the entire 90, but for your first timed session it will help you feel confident about the high rate of reinforcement if you have more than enough pieces of food on you.
Do not use this many actual treats. Make sure you are using a balanced food if using this many rewards. While there are safe “treats” that can be used, covering that is beyond the scope of this post. Use a portion of your dog’s regular meal instead.
Using part of your dog’s breakfast keeps training healthy and balanced.
This kind of Trickovation-style speed session is perfect for teaching something new or fine-tuning a behavior that needs a boost.
Can you get your dog moving today?
Give it a try. Set a timer, count your treats, and see what you and your dog can accomplish in just 3 focused minutes!
