If you let a dog sniff, will you be teaching your dog to sniff? Are you encouraging your dog to ignore you once you start formal work? I’m a big believer in the value of choice, in particular in dogs that have nervousness or stress issues. I think when dogs...
Engagement training is the very specific training process where responsibility for starting and pushing for work is transferred from the human to the dog. That is different than having an “engaged dog, which could happen with no specific training at all. Do you...
Take a look at this 10 second video: Do you see how the puppy is paying attention to the handler in a playful fashion for several seconds before moving on? Not following out of a need for security, but genuinely trying to engage? Now watch this short video: This is...
This question comes up a lot, so I wrote a supplemental lecture for my online Engagement class on this topic. However, since I discuss Engagement on my blog quite a bit, I am sharing the lecture here as well. I hope this provides clarification! What is the...
When I talk about personal play or interaction, I’m talking about the process of interacting with your dog without food or toys in a manner that is enjoyable for both of you, but rarely do I consider personal play a reinforcer. So what does that mean? A...
Two weeks ago I talked about criteria – decide what is important to you and hold the line. Now I’m going to tell you one more thing, since it might appear that I have a lot of criteria for one young dog. In reality, I only have one criteria for Lyra. I...
Last week I talked about my criteria for trialing. Many of you will be surprised to learn that I was only holding her to one criteria – the fact that she did excellent work was a bonus. I’ll get back to that topic in another week or so. This week...
Today I began my student’s lesson with the following directive: “Heel with your dog for two minutes without using a food or toy reward. You may talk, play, put hands on, and make the heeling as interesting as possible. At the end of two minutes, you may...
It’s Cisu’s turn in the limelight. She’s will remind some people of their own dogs because she’s rather typical of “dog”. Cisu has many interests, of which I am only one. She enjoys food and toys and exploring. She likes humans...
I’d like to introduce the current canine members of my household – not only are they a huge part of my life, but each has contributed greatly to my current ideas about training for competition. My plan was to start with Cisu; after all, she is the oldest....
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