Efficacy of Edible and Leisure Reinforcers with Domestic Dogs

SIMPLE SUMMARY: In this study, researchers aimed to compare the effectiveness of food and leisure stimuli as reinforcers for domestic dogs. While preference assessments have been conducted for various species, including humans and animals like cockroaches and wolves, to our knowledge, no study has specifically examined the preference between food and leisure stimuli in dogs. This study found that, overall, domestic dogs showed a preference for food over leisure items. Additionally, food was found to be a more effective reinforcer for dog behavior compared to leisure items. These findings have important implications for dog owners and trainers, suggesting that using food as a reinforcer may yield better results in training dogs. ABSTRACT: Preference assessments are often used to identify stimuli that function as potential reinforcers for training or intervention purposes. Specifically, various preference assessment formats have been used to identify preferred stimuli for humans, cockroaches, cotton-top tamarins, tortoises, and wolves, to name a few. However, to date, no study has evaluated the differential efficacy between food and leisure stimuli within domestic dogs. The current study aimed to compare the reinforcing value and efficacy between food and leisure stimuli for domestic dogs by comparing rates of behavior when receiving access to either their top-preferred food or leisure items. Overall results suggest (1) domestic dogs prefer food over leisure items, and (2) food is more likely to function as a reinforcer than leisure items for domestic dog’s behavior. These results suggest that dog owners and trainers should consider using food reinforcers over leisure items as reinforcers when attempting to train dogs.