01/09/2025
*** Rewarding the wrong behavior? ***
On a dog group I belong to, a question was asked about throwing food to a dog displaying aggressive behavior. This is still a controversial topic in the dog world, but for me personally, the jury is in and has been for over a decade. I have no question. But the two lines of thought are “you don’t want reward bad behavior. You’ll only encourage the dog to it more” the competing line of thought is, “we want to change how the dog feels about the situation by associating it with good things.”
I’m on the toss food team. Because it works. I can toss the competing theory aside.
I’ve run the experiment 100’s of times and I’ve never accidentally increased the behavior. It just doesn’t happen if you do it right.
Here is what I wrote in that group:
This is one of my favorite topics.
Let me start by saying I throw a lot of food to dogs who are engaging in threatening behavior towards me or towards others. I do it nearly every day. And it almost always reduces the behavior pretty quickly. But it has to be done right.
There’s no such thing as a toddler who lives with a dog and eats alone. The minute that kid is in the high chair he’s the dog’s best friend. Why? Because he leaks food at random intervals without asking anything from the dog in return. There is no pressure on the dog to “earn”. There is just an opportunity to get good things. The dog’s seeking system is activated creating curiosity which is the natural antidote to fear. The dog is less frightened and more curious.
I apply the same principle with dog displaying threatening behaviors all the time because it works so often.
It’s important to understand, I’m not trying to change the dog’s behavior. I’m trying to change how he feels. If I change how he feels, his behavior will change because his goals will change.
This is why people push back. “I don’t want to reward the wrong behavior.” I get it. I used to make the same argument. Dog trainers are taught to think in terms of reinforcement and punishment. And in that framework the only conclusion you can draw is that you must be reinforcing the unwanted behavior.
But here’s the deal. I’m not rewarding anything.
I’m creating curiosity and disrupting a pattern that has already been learned and reinforced to the point of habit.
To the dog’s mind, stranger = fear and conflict. I want to change that to stranger = free food. Free food. No pressure to perform, no need to dig deep and do something I don’t want to do. Just random free food. What’s not to like?
Once the dog is actively seeking the food, that’s when you make the food conditional.
A lot of people won’t try it because it doesn’t make sense to them.
Just remember, there’s two types of people who are going to tell you you can’t do something. Those who never tried, and those who didn’t succeed. Either way those people don’t know how to do the thing.
I’ve been succeeding with this approach for a very long time. It works. It’s my go to for most aggressive behaviors.
Give it a try. I think you’ll see how valuable it is.
-Chad Mackin
