What Is a Reinforcer in Dog Training?

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If you’ve worked with me before, you’ll probably have heard me talk about reinforcers.

It’s a word I use a lot when I’m talking about dog training, but I realise it’s not necessarily a word that everyone is familiar with. So, what actually is a reinforcer?

Quite simply, a reinforcer is something that makes a behaviour more likely to happen again.

Your dog does something, something happens afterwards, and because of that consequence, your dog is more likely to repeat the behaviour in the future.

The really important bit is that the dog gets to decide what is reinforcing.

We might think we’re rewarding our dog, but if our dog doesn’t actually value what we’re giving them, then it isn’t really a reinforcer.

And this can be different from dog to dog, from environment to environment and even from one moment to the next.

For some dogs, food is hugely reinforcing. For another dog, food might be nice, but they’d much rather have a game of tug. Another dog might be far more interested in getting to sniff something, going to see a person, playing with another dog or being allowed to run off and explore.

So when I’m training a dog, I’m always thinking about what does this particular dog find reinforcing?

And actually, what do they find reinforcing right now?

Because what worked brilliantly five minutes ago might not be what they want now.

Matching the reinforcer to the behaviour

I also want to think about how difficult the behaviour I’m asking for is.

If I’m teaching something really simple in my quiet training room, I might be able to reinforce that behaviour with a piece of the dog’s normal food.

But if I’m asking for something much more difficult, perhaps around lots of distractions, I need to make sure the reinforcer is valuable enough to make it worth their while.

I often think about this in terms of people.

Money is probably the most obvious reinforcer for most of us. We go to work, we do our job and we get paid. That payment is one of the things that makes us continue doing that job.

But we also expect our pay to reflect the work we are doing. If someone offered you £5 to do a really difficult, stressful job that normally paid £100, you probably wouldn’t be particularly motivated by that £5!

I think about our dogs in the same way.

If I’m asking my dog to do something really difficult, I need to make sure the reinforcer matches the difficulty of the behaviour.

That doesn’t mean I always need to use food. It means I need to think about what is valuable to that particular dog.

Food is brilliant, but it isn’t everything

I use food a lot in my training, particularly when I’m teaching a new behaviour.

And there’s a reason for that.

Food is really easy to use as a reinforcer. I can deliver it quickly, I can be really precise with it and I can reinforce my dog almost immediately after they have done the behaviour.

That’s really useful when we’re teaching something new.

But I don’t want my dogs to become dependent on food.

I want them to understand that there are lots of good things that can happen when they engage with me and participate in the behaviours I’m asking them to do.

So food is definitely part of my training, but it’s not the whole picture.

What does Pebbles find reinforcing?

If we’re talking specifically about Pebbles, she really likes play, and in particular, she loves a tug toy.

So when I’m working on recall with her, I’ll often have a tug toy tucked into my pocket.

If she’s off lead and I call her, I don’t get the toy out straight away. I want her to start coming back to me first.

As soon as she commits to coming back, I can produce the tug toy.

She comes back to me, we have a really good game, I ask her to drop it, we might have another little game, and then I’ll release her to go back off and do her own thing.

So there are actually a couple of different reinforcers happening here.

The tug toy is one reinforcer, but I’m also using freedom as a reinforcer.

I don’t want Pebbles to learn that every time I call her, the fun stops.

If every recall ended with me putting her lead on and taking her home, she could quite quickly learn that coming back to me isn’t particularly rewarding.

Instead, I want her to learn that coming back to me is worthwhile.

Sometimes that might mean a game of tug. Sometimes it might be food. Sometimes it might be some fuss and interaction with me.

And sometimes it might simply be:

“Brilliant, thank you. Off you go!”

And she gets to go back to exploring.

That freedom is really valuable to her, so why wouldn’t I use it?

I think this is one of the biggest things to remember when you’re training your dog: you don’t always have to manufacture the reward.

Look at what your dog naturally wants and see if you can use access to those things to reinforce the behaviours you want.

For Pebbles, a tug toy is incredibly valuable.

For another dog, it might be sniffing.

For another, it might be saying hello to their favourite person.

And that’s why I don’t have a set list of rewards that I tell every client to use.

I want to know what their dog finds reinforcing.

Sniffing can be a reinforcer too

I use this a lot with loose lead walking.

I don’t expect my dogs to walk beautifully beside me for an entire walk without being allowed to sniff anything.

Why would I?

Sniffing is important to dogs. It’s something they naturally want to do, and it’s part of how they explore and experience their environment.

So I can use that.

If my dog has been walking nicely with me, I might say, “That’s it, let’s go and have a sniff,” and allow them to go and investigate an appropriate area.

The sniffing is then part of the reinforcement for the behaviour I’ve just seen.

And I think this is a really nice way of looking at dog training because we don’t always need to be thinking, “What treat am I going to give my dog?”

Instead, we can think:

“What does my dog want, and how can I use access to that thing to reinforce the behaviour I want to see?”

Using access to people as a reinforcer

I use the same principle when I’m around people or other dogs.

Let’s say I’m approaching someone that my dog really wants to say hello to.

I might ask my dog for some eye contact first.

If they look at me, I don’t necessarily need to give them a piece of food.

If what they really want is to go and see that person, then access to that person can be the reinforcer.

So it might look like:

Look at me → then you can go and say hello.

I really like this because I’m teaching my dog that engaging with me isn’t always about food.

Sometimes engaging with me is actually how they get access to the thing they wanted in the first place.

It also gives me a chance to get some communication from my dog before they go over to the person.

Reinforcement isn’t the same as bribery

This is another thing I talk about quite a lot.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using food to help teach a new behaviour. In fact, luring can be a really useful way of helping a dog understand what we’re asking them to do.

But I don’t want to be walking around with a treat held in front of my dog’s nose every time I ask them for something.

If my dog only does the behaviour because they can see the food, then the food has become part of the prompt for the behaviour.

That’s different from using food as a reinforcer.

When I’m teaching something new, I might initially use a lure to help my dog understand the movement. But then I want to fade that lure out.

I want my dog to learn:

“I know what this behaviour means. If I do it, good things happen.”

Rather than:

“I can see food, so I’ll follow it.”

That difference is really important when we’re trying to build behaviours that are reliable in the long term.

So what do I mean by positive reinforcement?

My training is based on positive reinforcement, and those words can sound a little bit complicated if you’re not familiar with them.

But they’re actually quite simple.

In behavioural science, positive means adding something, and negative means taking something away.

Reinforcement means that the consequence makes the behaviour more likely to happen again.

So positive reinforcement is essentially adding something that your dog finds reinforcing in order to increase a behaviour.

For example:

Dog sits → food is delivered → sitting is more likely to happen again.

But it could just as easily be:

Dog recalls → we play tug → recall is more likely to happen again.

Or:

Dog walks nicely on the lead → they get to sniff → loose lead walking is more likely to happen again.

The thing we’re adding doesn’t have to be food. It just has to be something that the dog actually values.

And what about negative punishment?

I also use negative punishment in my training.

Again, it sounds much harsher than it actually is because of the word “punishment”.

In behavioural terms, punishment simply means that we’re trying to reduce a behaviour. Negative means we’re taking something away.

So negative punishment means taking something away to reduce a behaviour.

For example, if a dog is barking because they want access to something, I might temporarily remove access to that thing.

The barking hasn’t produced the outcome they wanted, so over time that behaviour is less likely to be successful in that situation.

I’m not trying to frighten the dog or make them feel bad.

Instead, I’m managing access to things the dog wants while teaching the dog what I would like them to do instead.

So, what does your dog find reinforcing?

This is something I really encourage people to think about.

Watch your dog.

What gets them excited?

What do they choose?

What are they willing to work for?

What do they really want access to?

And don’t assume that because something works for one dog, it will work for yours.

Your dog might work brilliantly for food in the house but prefer a game of tug when you’re outside.

They might love a particular treat in the kitchen but completely ignore it when they’re busy sniffing in the park.

They might not be interested in food at all when their favourite person is standing ten feet away.

That’s not your dog being difficult.

That’s information.

Your dog is telling you what matters to them.

And once you start paying attention to that, it gives you so many more options when you’re training.

So yes, I use food. A lot.

But I also use play, sniffing, freedom, access to people, fuss, toys and lots of other things.

Because ultimately, I want my dogs to learn that engaging with me and participating in the behaviours I’m asking for is worthwhile.

For me, that’s what good training is about.

It’s not just about getting our dogs to do what we want.

It’s about finding ways to make working with us worthwhile for them too.