Episode 69: Larger Reward Events
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[00:00:00] If you train, compete, teach, or simply love the sport of dog agility, you're in the right place. Hey there, I'm Megan Foster, creator of Fostering Excellence and Agility. Join me as we explore training, communication, handling, mindset, and all the little details that help build stronger and more confident teams, both in and out of the ring.
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Hey there. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I wanna talk about reward events. Recently, an article from neurosciencenews.com has been going around on social media because it shared some really exciting things about how we can reward our learners in order to accelerate learning
The title of the article [00:01:00] is Large Rewards Accelerate Learning Speed by Extending Brain Signals. This is really cool stuff, and I am really excited that more and more studies like these are coming out because it kind of, uh, validates what I've been experiencing as a dog trainer, and I wanna talk more about how I've been applying this to my own training.
So first, I do want to kinda go over some things that were in the article, and I think some things that need some explaining or clearing up based on conversations I've seen on the internet. The article uses the word jackpot early on, but they aren't talking about jackpots by definition. They aren't talking about jackpots in the way that dog trainers have traditionally used this word.
The article is talking about making every [00:02:00] reward event larger and more memorable. So first, let's define a jackpot. So by definition, a jackpot is the largest or most valuable prize in a game, lottery, or contest, or any great unexpected success or stroke of good fortune. So in my mind, a jackpot is a little bit of a surprise.
It's not happening frequently. The dog or the learner never knows when it's coming. And in traditional dog training, the way I've seen this w- jackpot concept be used is when the dog has a breakthrough or does something super exceptional. Uh, it's an incredibly p- popular strategy, especially in running dog walk training, to reward the ideal hit with a jackpot reward versus a less than ideal hit, but still really good dog walk [00:03:00] hit with a normal reward.
So, but by definition, jackpot is a surprise. So in my training system, I have been using reward hierarchies in a similar way. So instead of a really exceptional reward versus kind of a boring reward, I tend to have two reward strategies at play through most of my training sessions. So I might have a higher value reward for the ideal performance that I want to see more often, and I might have a lower value reward for the still really good effort, but not the performance that I want to see.
So in that same example with the running dog walk, the perfect hits might get, uh, for my dog Sprint, her cheeseburger treats, and the almost perfect hits, still really good, I wanna reward the effort, might [00:04:00] just get, um, some kibble. But in both situations, I'm still rewarding the effort significantly, both in terms of s- size of the reward, so it's very rarely just one cookie that I'm handing her.
It's usually three to five cookies per performance that she's done. But also, I'm adding my personality into every reward event. So if we're thinking about jackpots as being bigger and a surprise, and then the lower, the lesser reward being just kind of, "Here's your cookie," and you're not really adding it, mmm, that's not very fun for me.
I want my dog to be super intense about all the rewards that I have to offer them. So when I'm using two different types of rewards to select [00:05:00] for the behaviors that I want to see, I'm still including my personality and definitely still rewarding more than one cookie.
So I absolutely love that this article is basically confirming that larger reward events, so more cookies, more personality, more time being spent in the reward process, is accelerating learning. This is also showing up in my training because I am often doing a really low number of reps. Like, 10 reps of anything is a lot for one of my training sessions, and this of course makes sense because I'm spending a lot of time in the reward event, and also if I'm sequencing, there's a lot of time spent in rest and recovery before I do another rep.
This automatically means that my [00:06:00] rewarding time is longer than my working time, and therefore my sessions are shorter before I start to see, um, things like fatigue setting in, because the reward process is just as much work as the training task at hand. So here are a few things that this idea of using larger rewards means for me in practice.
Again, it means I can add my personality to the reward pro- process. Tell your dog how proud of them you are as you hand over several cookies. Luckily, we live with our dogs, and adding the social element to the reward will increase its size and value. So I definitely hear some of you out there going, "I can't just stuff my 10 pound dog with 10 cookies for every rep."
I hear you, and that is why I [00:07:00] believe that we can give social praise, social play, and also part of the reward process can be calming down again. So if you've just done some intense training rep, you've had this big party as a reward, now we need to calm down a little bit before we go into the next rep.
All of that, in my opinion, is a part of the reward process, and I believe that it adds value. My observations tell me that all of these things matter. So the second thing I want to dive into is matching the length- Uh, and the power of that reward event to the effort that they made. This one is super important.
I see this all the time. A dog runs a 10-obstacle sequence, and the trainer hands over one cookie with maybe a good dog or five seconds of tugging, and they're right back at the start line ready to go again. [00:08:00] So if this is happening chronically, you might see some issues of motivation creeping in, and I've talked about this in a previous episode.
This can also create dogs that no longer value the rewards that you have for them because they value the agility more because they're getting more agility, and your reward events aren't that great. So my rule of thumb is that the reward process should take at least as long as the work took, and if I'm trying to increase motivation, I'm leaning in the direction of two times as long.
So this is especially true, um, again, when I'm sequencing or I'm trying to build longer chains of work and I'm trying to move reinforcement to the end of the run or even outside of the ring. I'm leaning in the direction of the reward [00:09:00] event taking twice as long as the work itself. And again, I'm not saying rewa- you know, feed your dog for 30 seconds if it was 15 seconds of work.
I'm saying keep that reward process going, which can include calming down and can include recovery before starting again. I see motivation decrease all of the time when the Reward is just unsatisfying a- and they're just set right back to work, and, you know, the trainer's in a hurry to get another rep done.
I see motivation decrease like that more often than not. And then also for the dogs w- who might not experience, uh, an issue with motivation, like my own dog Sprint, I actually see frustration creep in when my reward events are not satisfying. She's more [00:10:00] vocal. She is a little bit stickier in her lineup.
She might make more mistakes actually, because she's a bit more frantic, and she's throwing herself into the behavior. So while I don't lose motivation, I do lose the right head space and the right feelings that I want her to develop for the task. So even though she's, you know, game to do it again, I'm risking that I'm l- losing value for my reinforcers altogether, and I'm also risking that frustration creeping into the task, and those are both things that I want to avoid.
So when I do start seeing those behaviors, it's a really clear reminder that my rewards are not satisfying. They don't match the effort that she's having to put into this task. Okay? Taking more time to reward your training will naturally lower the number of reps you're doing, but [00:11:00] it's okay, because your rewards are now more powerful, and your learning will be accelerated anyways.
So like I said, I was super excited to see this out there, but I did want to put out there for ev- for my listeners, um, how I'm using this information in practice, the observations that I have made, um, in my own dogs and my clients' dogs, and I invite you into the Fans of FX Agility community to talk with me all about it.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to leave a review, share it with an agility friend, or connect with me on social media. Your support helps more handlers and teams find the podcast and be part of this community. You can also find all of my training programs, coaching, and resources at fxagility.com.
Remember, excellent agility is built one training session at a time, and every small step forward matters. [00:12:00] Until next time, happy training
