The great thing about using food in training is it provides an opportunity to teach when it is appropriate to take food, and when it is not.
Food on the ground
Once you have taught collar pressure protocol, you can up the ante by adding distractions. Have the puppy in a SIT in heel position, with the leash loose but short. Toss the food several feet in front of you (well out of reach of the puppy). The puppy will probably lunge for the food. Allow him to reach the end of the leash. Note: the leash should be short enough that he does not hit the leash hard and hurt himself.
Allow him to stare at the treat or attempt to get it for as long as he wants. When he looks back at you, or at least relaxes his attempts to pursue the kibble, give him a reward from your hand. Do not allow him to get the treat off of the ground.
Do NOT give the puppy extra cues or tugs on the leash. Just keep the leash short enough that the puppy cannot reach the food. Wait him out. A visually impaired handler will not be able to see the food distraction ahead, so do not say “leave it” or any other command while you are working this. The goal is to teach the puppy to leave the food ON HIS OWN, without any external cues. Only when he checks in with you does he receive praise and a reward. This will be familiar to him if you have been working on the collar pressure protocol. We want the puppy to have a new default behavior: if the handler stops and the puppy feels pressure on the collar, we want him to “check in” for further instructions. This is also good training for you as a handler; it is much more effective to give commands or instructions to a dog when he is paying attention to you and has acknowledged your existence.
With a very young puppy, I don’t worry much if he occasionally drops a reward and then picks it up off of the ground. However, as he gets older, I make it a point to only allow him to have treats from my hand. This can help with scavenging; however, dogs are opportunistic scavengers so you will still have to set it up many, many times before the dog can regularly override his instinct to grab every piece of food in sight.
By setting up “treat tosses”, the puppy starts to learn that you are a sure thing, while food on the ground is not. Be opportunistic in your set-ups: if you are at a grocery store and there is a spill down an aisle, work up to it and stop short of where the puppy can reach it. Be sure that you are far enough away and that your leash is short enough that he can’t reward himself by pulling it towards him with his feet or lunging suddenly. Allow him to look at it, stare, lean towards it, etc., while you stand absolutely still and wait him out. When he finally relaxes the leash and checks in with you, reward him and walk away from the spill. Repeat the game several times, asking him to HEEL or SIT after he checks in with you before rewarding him. Ask for higher standards of behavior as he starts to learn.
If the puppy tends to be treat bag distracted, put the treat bag on the ground. Have a kibble or two hidden in your hand. Walk towards the treat bag, following the same protocol: stop short of where the puppy can reach it, and reward him when he WILLINGLY looks away from the treat bag, WITHOUT a cue from the handler. As he improves, walk him up to the treat bag, put him in a SIT/STAY, and make him wait while you get a treat out of the bag to bring to him as a reward. (Bonus tip: if you have a counter surfer, practicing this same game with the treat bag on the counter can help teach appropriate kitchen behavior)
In the following video, Idunn and I work with tossed kibble first, then work with the treat bag as a distraction. The treat bag is actually easier for her to ignore, and she shows great patience when I retrieve her reward (probably because of the foundation work she had with impulse control, as demonstrated in her first video!). But working around the little bits of kibble on the ground is very challenging. This will take lots of practice and repetition for her to become reliable around "spilled kibble".
Collar pressure - Food distraction 1 from Southeastern Guide Dogs on Vimeo.
Food from other people
This is an excellent exercise to practice at a puppy meeting or anywhere that you have helpful “distractors”. The distractor will have food or some other tempting item in his or her hand; your job will be to use collar pressure and patience to teach the puppy to not take food.
Depending on the age, distraction level, and skill of your puppy, you may want to try walking them past the distractor (beginner level) or seated in HEEL position (more advanced level). Walking past the distractor is less pressure on the dog than trying to stay still and resist temptation.
The distractor’s job will be to show the dog the food in a non-teasing way. They can approach and stop a few feet away, opening a hand to display some treats. If the puppy reaches towards them, they can just close their hand around the treats. Your job will be to allow the puppy lean towards or otherwise attempt to get the treats (but prevent him from actually succeeding) and to reward him when he returns attention to you. Try to resist the urge to correct him or give him instruction. Because this is a set-up and a very controlled situation, it is a great opportunity for the puppy to make a choice to leave the food.
As the puppy improves, raise the bar on the behavior before you give a treat. At first, you can reward him as soon as he looks back at you, but then start withholding the reward until he looks back at you, then responds to the HEEL command. Then, only give him a treat reward when he doesn’t attempt to grab the distractor’s food at all.
In the following video, we set Idunn up with a stranger approaching with a peanut butter cracker. You can see in the video that being seated at HEEL is very difficult for Idunn, probably because not only does she find the cracker distracting, but she is VERY distracted by people coming to say hello to her. We actually don’t make as much progress as I would like during this portion, so we switch to having the stranger stationary and holding the cracker, while Idunn and I pass by. She is much more successful with this technique. These set-ups are designed for the dog to succeed; our first attempt was too difficult and she was having trouble getting the right answer.
In the final portion, we switch back to Idunn in HEEL position and this time the stranger slows down her approach when she sees Idunn getting excited. This helps Idunn be successful. Although she shifts position a lot and has a tough time holding perfectly still, she tries extremely hard to maintain position and is not challenging to handle at all.
Collar pressure - Food distraction 2 from Southeastern Guide Dogs on Vimeo.
There are generally two ways to handle food distraction. One is to set the dog up and correct her when she fails. The other is to gradually work towards greater distractions and reward the dog when she succeeds. In this case, it is especially relevant because Idunn is a very soft dog, who is sensitive to verbal or collar corrections. If you re-watch the videos, you will see some mild compressions in her body language (especially when she is leaning towards the stranger, or when she is offering behaviors and trying to figure out the right answer). In the second video in particular, notice her jump at 0:58, as the stranger walks away and startles her. She is a dog who is trying very hard and does not want to be incorrect. Correcting her will only make her more afraid to be “wrong”. We realized that we were actually pushing her too hard and needed to work more under her distraction threshold. For a 9-month old puppy such as Idunn, the onus is on us as handlers to lay a good training foundation, set the dog up to succeed, and gradually raise the expectations of behavior.
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