Talk about building a system that can be gamed! My big dog does not steal my little dogs food except when he can. And in between they play together pretty amusingly. I don’t think I would gain anything by rewarding them playing together in terms of a lower rate at which the theft of food occurs. The problem being, my big dog (and probably my little dog) don’t think its “wrong” to steal food, they just don’t have that gene.
Given that the food is usually the positive reinforcement when you are conditioning animals and that is one of their goals for which they change their behavior it is indeed quite hard to reinforce them not to eat when presented with the option.
Talk about building a system that can be gamed! My big dog does not steal my little dogs food except when he can. And in between they play together pretty amusingly. I don’t think I would gain anything by rewarding them playing together in terms of a lower rate at which the theft of food occurs. The problem being, my big dog (and probably my little dog) don’t think its “wrong” to steal food, they just don’t have that gene.
Given that the food is usually the positive reinforcement when you are conditioning animals and that is one of their goals for which they change their behavior it is indeed quite hard to reinforce them not to eat when presented with the option.