So the other night I was scrolling through TikTok instead of sleeping (as one does) and I stumbled upon a video that a friend posted. It was a perfect example of one of the common issues people have in training and they had the standard response to the issue. The handler simply had their hand in their pouch while they were asking for behaviors from their husky mix. This may seem benign to us but to the dog it is a massive cause for frustration. When we are working with our animals we need clear communications. We need clear cues to tell them what to do and clear markers to let them know when they got something right. Unfortunately simply having your hand in the pouch muddies up all the communication. No matter how perfect we are with our markers we can remove the importance of a hand in the pouch. It is a clear sign to the dog that they are about to get a treat. We can't get the treat without reaching into the bag which is why it will always be consistent. So when we put our hand into the pouch we are telling them that a reward is imminent. To put it into our perspective, it would be like being told you are being paid on Friday and then you don't have your check and it is Saturday. Then on Monday you say "where's my check" and then get told to "be patient." That is what we are putting our dogs through when we hold our hands in the pouch when we aren't ready to reward them. And this builds frustration leading to behaviors that are often labeled as sass or stubbornness. We often see this frustration as behaviors like barking and other vocalizations, refusal to do behaviors, throwing out unasked for behaviors, nose punching or pawing the treat pouch, etc. These are all simply communications from your pet that they are frustrated and they believed a treat was on the way. I also often use the term "food dumb" in these situations due to the hyper fixation on the food at that moment but that label isn't fair to the animal because it is the handler's fault for being unclear.
This is also one of the simplest things to fix. Just keep your hand out of the pouch. Well, sorta simple. We often are doing this unconsciously so we need to set up tricks to build our success. The primary tricks are being self aware and having a neutral position. To become more self away, have someone watch you train and let you know when you have your hand in your pouch or even better telling you when you are doing well and DON'T have your hand in the pouch. Even watching recordings of yourself training can help you become more self aware to when you are doing this. The other big help is to have a neutral position. A neutral position is simply a job for your hands when you aren't using them. Idle hands are the devil's plaything and not giving them a job will often allow you to fidget and the most common place to fidget when training is wherever you put the treats.
So the tldr is keep your hands away from the treats until you mean it.
Happy training!
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