I was chatting with someone the other day and mentioned what I’d been doing with Kenzi. Mostly petting/massage time and working on some tricks that can be done while she’s stationary. And be generous with food rewards for the tricks.

“You’d better be careful – she may end up rather spoiled with all that” they said with a note of seriousness.

Now, if it was in a joking tone, I would have chuckled. I frequently joke about my spoiled creatures.

But I got the drift that they were serious. And it left me a bit speechless.

You can’t spoil a dog through rewarding them as they work. Your lack of expertise in training and rewarding can lead to confusion, lack of learning or a dog who is just looking for treats. However, done correctly, you can train just about anything through a treat based reward system. They may not always be the quickest or best choice depending on the situation. But with handler skill, treats work wonderfully overall.

Now lets go a bit further.

Three weeks ago (after months of injury issues that kept her restricted) I took my dog to a strange place, left her for a full day with strange people where a bunch of weird stuff and, at best, uncomfortable stuff happened.  When I showed back up the next day she was groggy, had a cast up past her elbow and was wearing a cone.

I brought her home and she’s spent the past 3 weeks in a crate or on a leash next to me. She’s had all of her freedom taken away. And it’s going to be that way for a while yet.

Life kinda sucks for Border Collie with an independent streak who would prefer to be bossing the puppy, patrolling the property, catching frisbees and going to trainings.

Despite all of that (and with the help of some meds) she’s being a model patient.

She easily goes to her crate – even though it means that she can’t sleep on the bed right now. She leaves her bandaging alone. She stands and waits to be picked up to go up and down stairs. She gobbles her pills down with gusto. She’s happy for any attention.

So I’m going to purposely spend at least 20-30 minutes a day giving her what she likes within the confines of, well, not doing much at all. I’ll pet her, brush her, give her a massage. I’ll turn some of her (limited because she’s on restricted activity and I don’t want her to gain weight) meals into training treats while I work her brain with a trick like “hold”.  I’ll see her wag her tail and and watch her happy face when she gets attention and get to do something instead of just listening to the other two run around and be dogs.

When we’re finally through all this I will have a happy, receptive dog. A dog who will happily hold just about anything in her mouth because it’s been highly rewarded for doing so. A dog who still loves to work with me and takes anything life throws at her like a trooper.

And quite frankly, if she was a bit spoiled after all that, who cares? If a dog can adapt to all of that, don’t you think they deserve something for their trouble?