Opportunistic Dog Training - Lifestyle Changes

So now that you have been priming the pump, dragging pooch around with a clicker and a treat bag for a week or so, you are ready to begin training in earnest. NOT!! Remember we are not going to do that. There is nothing earnest about it. It will be fun and rewarding for both of you. And we will not be beginning anything, we have already begun and using this method training will never end, but will always succeed in the long run. Remember what I said about never? Same here.

You are probably pretty impressed by how easily and vigorously your pet began responding to the sound of the clicker. If not, read the first blog all the way to the end. Remember you were not supposed to make eye contact or make so much as a peep. Your pet is responding to the clicker, not you and that is exactly what we want. This will be helpful in the future when the whole family wants to join in the fun.

Now we are going to talk about opportunistic training. With this training methodology, our dogs are going to show us their stuff and we are going to sit back and grade it, like officials at the Olympics. "Why would my dog want to show me his stuff?" you might be wondering. Because we have the clicker AND a bag of goodies.

Even before day one of "priming the pump" was over, you probably notice Fifi was expressing a LOT more interest in you, and expressing it much differently. You might have even noticed she was going out of her way to get your attention, or make eye contact. Great job on the treat selection if this was the case. Now we are going to start becoming a little selective about when we click that clicker. Without being obvious, start watching your pet out of the corner of your eye. She just sat down? BANG! Click and treat! Grant you, she is clueless about why this happened and will assume it was random.

For the next three days pick ONE behavior that you see your canine perform on a somewhat regular basis. The behavior should happen with relatively high frequency, it should be spontaneous, and it should be positive. Peeing on the carpet does not count and we will address that in a different post. Sitting is a good one to start with, but if you prefer laying down, or picking up your slippers, knock yourself out. It has to happen fairly frequently so that you can catch her in the act.

Click and treat every time you see her sit, or whatever behavior we chose. Right now our focus is not so much to train a new behavior, but to train a learning method. Your dog is learning that sometime when she does something, something good happens. She also has learned that when she hears that click it means she will get a treat. 1+1 = a dog that will continue to try new things and that means a dog that is primed for learning.

During this phase, you will notice your pup starts to sit a lot around you. Click and treat every time she does it. Don't look at her, don't talk to her, don't fuss over what a good girl she is, we will be doing more of that later. Right now she is just learning the program, and the nice thing about the program is that like a baton, it can be passed from family member to family member and she will not care who has the clicker and the treat bag.

Continue to observe and click. You probably only need a few days on this phase of the training, but don't worry about rushing to the next step. All of the time up front will be time well spent in the long run. And have fun! You and your pup are bonding, your heart rate and blood pressure are going down and she will help you live a longer and healthier life!