"What do you reward?"

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Our family kept a dog for a friend of ours. She’s a really sweet dog except she’s learned where the treats are in our home. Evidently at her home she stands by the pantry door and barks until she gets one because that’s what she started doing at our home.

She barked one evening until our daughter walked by, said, "Okay, okay, here you go" and gave the dog a biscuit. Now I had observed my wife earlier with the dog in a similar situation. Except instead of giving the dog a biscuit, my wife had placed her finger on the dog’s nose, and sternly said, "No." So the dog didn’t bark by the pantry when my wife was around. Only my daughter.

So I told my daughter, "You’ve just trained that dog to bark to get a treat rather than rewarding her positive behavior. When should you give her one?"

And my daughter said, "When she goes to the bathroom outside?"

"That’s right," I said and immediately gave my daughter a treat for her right answer. I’m teasing, but you get the idea—reward those you love when you catch them doing something positive…just like God does you!

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