Training with Treats Is Not Bribery
Many times we will hear that it is wrong to provide treats in training, because it’s bribing the dog to do the behavior. But this is incorrect for multiple reasons.
1. It ignores how motivation works.
Definition of motivation: the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
If someone claims a dog is only doing the behavior to earn the treat reward, then the alternatives to that would be the dog is only doing the behavior because of threats that cause fear and pain from other types of training methods. Dogs have to have a reason to perform a behavior. They do not do things for no reason. No motivation, no training. That is a simple law of how animals behave. And this is true for people as well.
We could equally say people are only going to work, because of the reward they receive (their paycheck). For dogs (and other animals), the paycheck is food and treats. People would not continue working, if they were not paid, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Again the alternative to payment, would be force someone to work by threats of pain, which we know is immoral.
2. It conflates bribery with teaching, motivation, and rewards.
Definition of a bribe: to persuade (someone) to act in one’s favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or inducement.
None of this applies to animal training. If we are using lure-reward training techniques (where the dog follows a treat held by his nose into different positions like sit or down), this is completed to teach the dog to perform the behavior - otherwise, how would he know what to do? Then the treat is given as positive reinforcement (as a reward), to strengthen that particular behavior response - meaning it will increase the probability the dog will perform the same behavior again in the future under those same circumstances.
None of this is done to lead a dog to an illegal or dishonest action.
3. Later stages of training do not show the treat up front.
Proper training technique will also fade lures (showing the food up front) to prevent dogs from only responding under those circumstances. If this is not done, the dog views this as a different type of situation - meaning he was just trained to respond to those specific environmental factors (which include the treat is present). Good training will eventually lead to treats that are given as a reward after the dog completes the behavior.
One of the realities about training is the fact that there are always competing motivations. A dog may be interested in chasing a squirrel, or running up to greet another dog, or smelling the ground for engrossing scents, and many other things. For this reason, we need to not only provide motivation that works (i.e., the dog is actually interested in it), but we also have to reinforce or greatly strengthen the responses we want around competing motivations for a well-trained dog that will respond accordingly - and to achieve this, treats are usually the best form of motivation and reinforcement.