Shasta,
In learning theory the term reward isn’t used, behavior is either reinforced ( becomes more frequent or more intense) or punished ( less frequent or intense) but in common use many people use the term reward for reinforcement. This is why when I first used the term I put it in quotations. I’m simply saying that the behavior served its purpose… space was increased between the scary thing and your dog. Removing the dog when he alerts (tense) but doesn’t react ( lunge bark) can help the dog to learn he doesn’t need to react to get out of the situation. In BAT the dog alerts but hopefully far enough away so doesn’t react and the trainer watches for a disengaging behavior (breaks eye contact with target, turns )then marks that behavior and leaves the dog. Following with food/toy serves to both classically change emotion and reinforce behavior.
When training Jack I used a squeeky ball. The squeek was used as a positive interrupter. To get the behavior of “disengage”. Squeek was taught to mean give eye contact and that was reinforced with toss of the ball. Real world training isn’t as clean as a controlled environment so I need a way to get his to break focus as we would often be over the ideal threshold when out and about in teh real world. Squeeky also triggers a positive emotional response( he loves fetch) which then became associated with the scary thing. Scary thing becomes a predictor of fun. Ceaser uses aversive interrupters. Neck jab, kick to haunch get the dog break focus.. but the dog then makes the association between scary thing predicts scary things. Not an association I want to make. This is why I don’t use Ceasar’s methods.
So what I have now is Jack sees something that he used to react to and instead of reacting he turns back to me doing a happy dance looking for his ball to be thrown.
