Five Things to Catch Your Dog Doing Right
Training requires maintenance, just like your car, your fitness or your home! Catching your dog doing the right thing is a great way to easily maintain the behaviors you like. Here are 5 behaviors you can reinforce your dog for doing on the fly so that they are more likely to keep happening.
Settling Reward your dog just for hanging out . We like it when they are calm when we are at our desk, making dinner, eating breakfast, changing a diaper or sitting on a park bench. Give them some positive feedback for this. Reinforcement could look like some love and attention (if they like they that), a moment of play, a good chew toy or even just a piece of kibble or small treat. If you like it when they chill in a certain place, their bed say, then especially reinforce them when they relax here.
Check-ins Looking at you or coming back to you of their own accord is a great default behavior to promote, especially around distractions. We want our dogs to understand “when in doubt, look to me.” Reward them here and there when they come back to you of their own accord on off leash walks or even when they look at you during an on leash adventure.
Polite Greetings If your dog has done a lovely job of walking up to a friend or waiting while they come in the door let them know it! Attention from the friend or a little snack are great options. Or perhaps they are sitting politely waiting while you chat to a neighbor on a walk- what a good dog!
Ignoring Big Distractions Other barking dogs, loud construction noises, kids biking past, a flock of geese taking flight, the garbage truck, the doorbell, the cat jumping onto something… the possibilities are endless. While there is nothing wrong with curiosity or focus on these things we usually want our dogs to avoid chasing or barking at distracting stimuli. Furthermore these things can make some dogs nervous. So by giving your dog a little snack after these events occur you can help them build a positive association with them and decrease the likelihood of reactivity.
Walking on a Loose Leash - I don’t know about you but I do not love being dragged around by a dog on a leash. I do love to give them the ability to sniff and explore but the two are not mutually exclusive. In addition to using a well fitted and designed no pull harness you can give them some big ups with a snack at the moments when they are walking on a loose leash to let them know that that behavior is great for them- they get to sniff and they get a bonus snack!
There are all kinds of behaviors in all kinds of contexts and environments that we can reward our dogs for doing well. Remember, especially when you are just starting out with training or with younger dogs “doing something right” might be doing it for just one second! It might also be doing it for just one second in a very low distraction environment. That’'s ok. That is exactly where you will start. One moment of calm sitting while you are waiting to pick the kids up from school while standing across the street where its a little less wild? Pay it! Then graaaaaadually increase the difficulty from there.
