Hey that would be a vast improvement on my "jackpots" -- they have simply been a whole handful of mixed treats dumped on the ground for Kibo all at once. He finds those impressive, and they've helped us a lot, I think. But I can just imagine how much more impressed he'd be if I suddenly had a piece of cow on me that "the nose" didn't know about!
I wonder if I can duplicate that with a really well sealed container of meat hidden on me somehow... hmmm.... giving me lots of interesting ideas!
For anyone wanting to read more: Jean Dondaldson has a really nice piece on using variable rewards for recall training in her book "Dogs are from Neptune". And Pam Dennison has some good suggestions for varying the rewards by including things other than food in "How to Right a Dog gone Wrong".
As far as I can tell, those variations really work, it just takes some forethought and a good instinct for when to splurge, when to be stingy, and when to seize the opportunity to reward with something else altogether. But the "Hamburger Coup" definitely sounds like it should impress just about every dog! Thanks for sharing!