Dog 360

Then, you must teach the dog what your selected conditioned reinforcer is. Following are a couple of ways you can do this.
Establish a Conditioned Reinforcer Using a Random Schedule of Reinforcement
This exercise is a very simple one that will enable you to teach your dog a selected conditioned reinforcer. The idea behind this method is to give the dog your conditioned reinforcer (“good”) right before you give the dog her unconditioned reinforcer (food). When you do this,
the dog will understand the value of the word “good” (the conditioned reinforcer). This understanding will be an invaluable tool for future training.
Step 1: Get 150 to 200 of the very soft and small food treats your dog likes.
Step 2: Begin this exercise only when your dog is hungry.
Step 3: Sit down on the sofa in the living room. Make sure there are no distractions for the dog. Put some treats where you can reach them but the dog cannot (maybe up on the back of the sofa behind you).
Step 4: At random times, say the conditioned reinforcer “good” and toss a treat to the dog. It doesn’t matter what the dog is doing when you toss the treat. Watch TV or read a book, so you can ignore the dog long enough between treats so that she leaves you alone and starts to
do something else. She may look out the window, sniff around, scratch or sleep. It doesn’t matter.
Step 5: After 150 to 200 trials (a trial is one training experience— in this case, saying “good” and tossing a treat), your dog should perk up every time she hears your conditioned reinforcer “good,” in anticipation of the unconditioned reinforcer (food). The word “good” now has a specific meaning to the dog. It means, “I am about to get a treat!”
Step 6: The word “good” can now be maintained as a valuable training tool to communicate to your dog when she did the right thing and exactly how well she did.
Step 7: When you’re teaching the dog a command, each correct response should be followed by the word “good,” and the best responses should be followed with the dog’s unconditioned reinforcer (food).
Vary Your Reinforcement
You should start to vary your reinforcement only after your conditioned reinforcer has been properly trained. This will increase your communication with the dog.
For example, if your dog performs a “sit” when she is given the “sit” command, but sits slowly, you may signal your dog that she performed the correct behavior by saying “good,” but not follow it with any unconditioned reinforcer (in other words, no food). However, if
you give your dog a “sit” command and she sits faster that usual, you’d give your conditioned reinforcer “good” at the moment her bottom touches the ground (to mark the aspect of the behavior you liked) and follow it with your unconditioned reinforcer (food).
This will teach her that the faster “sit” was more valuable to you. Over time the dog will do more of the faster sits, since they are the ones that get her the food treat. Slow sits, while a correct response to the “sit” command, have less value to your dog, because “good” is not followed by a food treat.
In fact, you can further hone your communication with the dog by being aware of which unconditioned reinforcers your dog likes better, and only giving those for the most excellent behaviors. For example, the fastest sit gets a piece of steak after “good,” while a fast sit gets a piece of cheese after “good.” A medium sit gets a cracker after “good” and a slow sit gets nothing after the conditioned reinforcer “good.”
You can also make some rewards more valuable by increasing the amount of the reward. A piece of steak is better than a cracker, and three pieces of steak are better than one piece of steak!