Will Work for Hot Dog

Do you ever wonder how dogs are rewarded for taking part in scientific research? In some studies dogs are allowed to act naturally, but in others they need to learn something such as how to operate an apparatus they haven’t seen before, or to observe people interacting. Either way, you can’t guarantee canine cooperation. This week we thought we’d take a look at how dogs are motivated during the course of the research itself.

Photo: kitty / Shutterstock

Needless to say, food is a common denominator. Many studies use sausage or hot dog. For example, in Buttelmann and Tomasello’s (2012) research, dogs were given a piece of sausage if they successfully chose the box containing it, rather than one containing wood shavings or garlic, after a human had peeked into the box and made an appropriate facial response. Horowitz, Hecht and Dedrick (2013) used hot dog in their studies of pet dogs sense of smell. Range, Huber and Heyes (2011) refer to “a small piece of sausage” as the reward in training dogs to open a box (and with up to 350 trials in the experiment proper, that’s potentially a lot of sausage). 

Other enticing food rewards are used too. Elgier et al (2009) writes that “As reinforcer, small pieces of dry liver of 3g were used. In order to control the odor, both containers were greased with abundant liver before the experience.” You can just imagine the dogs licking their lips, though they only received liver if they chose the correct one of two boxes by following a pointing gesture from their owner. Otherwise they were told “no” and shown that the liver was in the other box. 

Other studies use regular food, or a mix of kibble and treats. Burman et al (2011) used “two different types of food reward (standard food pellets and Frolic TM)”. They explain that “The dogs were familiar with both food types, receiving standard food pellets as their regular diet and being rewarded with Frolic during training.” 

In some cases, the researchers have made a note in the method section that they had to take account of food allergies. For example, in Feuerbacher and Wynne (2012)most of the dogs were given a piece of Natural Balance, but one dog was rewarded with a piece of potato. Although it may surprise some readers, this is fine: the thing that counts is whether or not the dog finds it rewarding. (If the dog didn’t like potato, then it would have been a problem).

Human preferences may also have to be taken into account, such as in Freidin et al (2013)’s study of dogs’ eavesdropping abilities. Sausage was used as a reward for the dogs, but they had to first observe an interaction between three people. Although sausage might have been acceptable to a human also, instead they used cornflakes, and hence, at the start of the study, plates were prepped with cornflakes (for the human) and pieces of sausage (for the dog).

Disappointingly, some studies refer only to “food” or “treats” without specifying exactly what, so we can’t draw up a table of the most preferred food item. What do you use when training your dog at home?

References

Burman, O., McGowan, R., Mendl, M., Norling, Y., Paul, E., Rehn, T., & Keeling, L. (2011). Using judgement bias to measure positive affective state in dogs Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 132 (3-4), 160-168 DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2011.04.001 
Buttelmann, D., & Tomasello, M. (2012). Can domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use referential emotional expressions to locate hidden food? Animal Cognition, 16 (1), 137-145 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-012-0560-4 
Elgier, A., Jakovcevic, A., Mustaca, A., & Bentosela, M. (2009). Learning and owner–stranger effects on interspecific communication in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) Behavioural Processes, 81 (1), 44-49 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2008.12.023 
Feuerbacher, E., & Wynne, C. (2012). RELATIVE EFFICACY OF HUMAN SOCIAL INTERACTION AND FOOD AS REINFORCERS FOR DOMESTIC DOGS AND HAND-REARED WOLVES Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 98 (1), 105-129 DOI: 10.1901/jeab.2012.98-105 
Freidin E, Putrino N, DOrazio M, & Bentosela M (2013). Dogs Eavesdropping from peoples reactions in third party interactions. PloS one, 8 (11) PMID: 24236108 
Horowitz, A., Hecht, J., & Dedrick, A. (2013). Smelling more or less: Investigating the olfactory experience of the domestic dog Learning and Motivation, 44 (4), 207-217 DOI: 10.1016/j.lmot.2013.02.002 
Range F, Huber L, & Heyes C (2011). Automatic imitation in dogs. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 278 (1703), 211-7 PMID: 20667875

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