Why Dogs Do What They Do All behaviour is costly and therefore no organism performs a behaviour without good reason.  Behaviour  is costly firstly because it uses energy and secondly when we are performing a given behaviour we are  stopping ourselves from performing a different behaviour.  As humans we have to prioritise our  behaviours all the time.  While I am sitting here writing this I am unable to get a load of washing in the  machine, or walk my dogs, or hoover the house.  All of these activities use energy so while I am engaged  in writing this article (or doing any of the other jobs) I am not using my time to source and eat food which  will replenish my energy reserves.  Also in my list of jobs some are more rewarding than others, I would  much rather be walking my dogs or writing these articles than sorting out the washing or hoovering the  house.  But I know if I don’t deal with the over following washing basket I will run out of cloths and if I  don’t hoover there will be more fur on the floor than on the dogs! Dogs prioritise their behaviours on a basis of what is MOST valuable to them at the time; for example,  playing with another dog in the park is likely to be more valuable than returning when called only to be  taken home or put on a lead.  In fact the concept of value is most evident when it comes to unreliable  recalls.  An unreliable recall is one of the most common problems faced by owners and it is the result of a  dog placing different values on returning and not returning.  If there is nothing in the immediate  environment which is more valuable or rewarding, then returning to the owner is a dog’s best option.   But...if there is a dog to play with, a rabbit to chase or a pile of fox doo to roll in, not returning when called is going to be more valuable to the dog. Paying your Workers Rewarding your dog for desired behaviours is NOT bribing them.  A bribe takes place before a job is  completed, but a reward occurs afterwards.  While we do provide an incentive (i.e. if you sit you get this  food) the food is ONLY given when the dog performs the behaviour we are looking for.  When trained like  this a dog is learning that listening and being responsive to the handler leads to pleasant AND valuable  outcomes and therefore it becomes in the dog’s best interest to carefully consider what we are offering  verses what the dog can achieve for themselves.  Dogs have been selectively bred for thousands of  years to be responsive to humans so half our battle is already won when we engage with our dogs to  train them.  However, to train reliable behaviours we need to ensure we are paying our dogs for a job well done.  Behaviours need to be reliable   When we train dogs we want the trained behaviour to be reliable.  When we teach a dog to come when  called, we want them to return every time not 40-60% of the time.  A behaviour becomes reliable when  the value of what we are asking is greater than the value of any other behaviour.  To achieve this we  need to be consistent with our training and offer high value rewards. In short we need to teach our dogs  that we are valuable and that we are the keepers of their ‘wages’ for a job well done.