How to reward less and get MORE

Should you reward your dog every single time they do something? This is a question I get a lot, and I think you're gonna love the answer. When we are teaching something new, we have to reward every single time, otherwise it's not clear to the dog exactly what they're being rewarded for. This is called continuous reinforcement. So now we've taught the behavior, how can we reward less without decreasing the motivation of the dog. Studies have shown that dogs are very similar to humans when it comes to reinforcement. If you don't know when the reward will come, but you know it will, you get hooked on this randomization. And it's proven to have the highest response rate in dogs, and it's what keeps people coming back to slot machines. So yes, a variable ratio is why people get addicted to gambling. Now the dog gets money after every 2 repetitions, 3 repetitions, and then 1 repetition, and we completely randomise it. Just make sure not to completely remove reward, otherwise the dog is probably going to stop doing it.