Blog
Food refusal for dog sports
One of the exercises in Ringsport is food refusal. This was fun to teach! We're not done yet, but here's our current progress with small slices of hot dog - next up will be bigger chunks: Here are the steps: 1. A solid down stay. 2. Cue "leave it" and throw a...
Distraction Training with Elements of Engagement
This video shows my young dog Dice in a field with active gophers. I want to work. He wants to dig them up. Here you'll see a combination of distraction training with my Stages of Engagement. I want him to choose to opt-in but that's not easy under these...
Concept (goals) or Criteria (process)?
The majority of behaviors that I teach are accomplished via reinforcing specific criteria. I know exactly how I want the dog to look at each step of the process as they move towards the final behavior. This is a process-driven approach. Other things I teach as...
What Happens If
A few years ago I had a student in a class who had spent a fair amount of time trying to teach her dog to pick up an object by shaping it. For various reasons she had not succeeded. Since the purpose of the class was not to teach the retrieve, nor was it to discuss...
Handling errors by making the dog ‘more wrong’
Here's an entire video of my dog making errors finding front, mostly due to loss of attention. I am primarily demonstrating the technique of making the dog "more wrong". The basic sequence is that he returns to me, drops his toy for another repetition of...
