[Cagdu] food rewards Resolution 2.doc

[Ken Volonte]

Food Rewards Resolution
Ken Volonte

	Whereas guide dogs have been in the public eye for more than eighty years, and;

	Whereas these guides have been bread to please their handlers, and;

	Whereas some few guide dog schools now use food rewards in order to reinforce physical praise, and;

	Whereas such use of food rewards may be entirely appropriate and necessary during the initial training of the dogs for guide work, and;

	Whereas any dog must be rewarded within 1 second of catching a desired behavior, and;

      Whereas use of food rewards in combination with the clicker is impractical because the time from behavior to reward is more than 2.5 seconds, and;

      Whereas use of food rewards is inconvenient and messy and interferes with the relationship between dog and handler because the dog will not generalize situations, but will instead be focused on trying to get a kibble, and

      Whereas use of food rewards in public will lead to the erroneous perception that we are training our guide dog from scratch for others, and;

	Whereas use of food rewards has the unintended consequence of making the dogs more solicitous of food:

	Now therefore be it resolved that the National Federation of the Blind of California request that guide dog schools  offer the use of food rewards as a tool rather than as an imperative.
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