My dog only listens when I have a treat in my hand.

Part six:

I posted a photo of a traffic signal button and said, "Intermittent reinforcement builds persistent behavior." They claim these traffic signal buttons work, but I doubt it. Anyway, if that is case, and they do work, then think slot machine. Slot machines are intermittent reinforcement at its finest. It is the thing that hardly ever happens that keeps animals behaving in a certain way.

So, once you reach that maintenance level of the stages of learning, the external reinforcement (speaking in simple terms, I mean what comes from you) must become intermittent, or random, or call it what you want, but it must happen rarely. When it does you will never again say, "My dog only listens to me when I have a cookie in my hand."