Want to Know the Secret to Successful Dog Training?
The secret is: only train when you can control the outcome.
In other words, choosing the right time to train is important. When you are in the middle of something and your dog misbehaves, you may not have time to train. In these situations, INTERRUPT your dog and quickly MANAGE the situation.
Rather than trying to “train” your dog in front of your guests, or when you are in a rush, dedicate time each day to creating TEACHING MOMENTS. Teaching Moments are when you set aside time to practice exercises with your dog that teach expected outcomes.
Zen Dog Training
At Zen Dog Training, we recommend you set-up situations – every day – where you teach your dog the rules, boundaries, and consequences of their decisions with carefully crafted environments and consistency. Training goes beyond positive reinforcement, as people find opportunities to teach dogs they get praise, treats, and love for making good decisions, but also, they lean they are ignored, interrupted, or controlled if they make a bad decision.
An important aspect is to help people find the right moment to train. Sometimes there isn’t time to TRAIN and is is better to MANAGE a situation, so focus on setting up an environment where you can control the outcome. Instead of being “reactive” to your dog, a pro-active approach ensures that training happens on your terms.
When there is time to TRAIN, it means taking every opportunity to set-up environments where you can teach a lesson or prevent bad behaviors from happening in the first place. Once people control the outcome, training becomes easier. Zen Dog Training means challenging people to not only set their dog up to succeed, but even even fail, in training scenarios that reinforce the rules of the house.
The Secret to Zen Dog Training
The secret to any dog training, is that due to dog’s persistent and inquisitive nature, they will need a lot of guidance and repetition. It is not good enough to just ignore, avoid or manage, people must dedicate time to work with their dogs, and repeat exercises over and over until they understand the rules.
Having your dog in a controlled setting before you start training is the foundation for successful training. Therefore, the most important lesson is remembering to constantly control the outcomes by creating TEACHING MOMENTS that use the right MANAGEMENT TOOLS. Set your dog up for success by carefully structuring the environment in a way that guarantees you control the outcome and you will be able to both reward good behaviors and ignore, interrupt, or control bad ones until you teach a lesson.
Ultimately, the secret to Zen Dog Training is getting people to think like dogs. When people see things from their dogs point of view, they can train from a place of understanding. Training is knowing what truly motivates each dog, and communication with them using clear signals and consistent outcomes.
