Triggers To Reinforcement
The first newsletter in my new series Focus for Work was sent out today. For those of you that are working on the homework assignment I am using the blog as a place for your to comment. Would love to hear your thoughts on the series and your assignments. For those of you not on […]
Continue readingImmediate vs Long Term Reinforcement
Defining moments of decision happen both in the dog and in us. Do you hit the snooze alarm in the morning or do you decide to get up, giving you a few extra moments to train your dog before you leave for work? Do you see your dog responding inappropriately, yet decide it is too […]
Continue readingStressing Dogs, Dancing Humans & Weirdly Inappropriate Reinforcement
Stress. It is a hot topic. At every seminar I teach someone will tell me about their “stressy” dog and how they (as the handler) will need to alter my instructions in order to deflect the stress of the environment away from this woeful creature. Here is the thing. It is an incredibly difficult lesson […]
Continue readingHow Awesome is Reinforcement Really?
Okay if you haven’t read yesterday’s blog post, please do or this one won’t make sense to you. Yesterday I had many of you stressing about what I wrote. You were like dogs shutting down on me, leaving the ring or frantically stress running about, looking for challenges in order to gain appeasement. Ain’t it […]
Continue readingThe Power of Positive Reinforcement
This is a positive reinforcement lesson and it is very funny. It was sent to me this week and I thought you all would enjoy it. Have a great weekend everyone! Sorry you have to go to youtube to watch it as for some reason I can’t embed it in this blog. But it is […]
Continue reading6 Keys to Shaping Behaviour
Recently we looked at the difference in shaping with a video from the archives of my shaping progressions. Today I’m sharing 6 keys that I consider are critical for shaping success. If you are new to shaping or want to brush up your skills, Crate Games is ideal, and the game I have been using […]
Continue readingPositive Dog Training and the Difference in Shaping
Last week we looked at luring vs shaping, so it’s only fair that this week we are looking at shaping vs shaping. Recently in one of our Inner Circle coaching calls, we were discussing shaping, successive approximations, and the role of failure in dog training (we may geek out a bit on dog training in […]
Continue readingLurers Anonymous (Luring vs Shaping)
When you are training your dog, it can seem easy to pull out a cookie and lure your dog to do something. But you need to ask yourself what learning will be taking place in the dog’s mind. Generally, it is “do nothing and I will get rewarded for it”. Luring can take away the […]
Continue readingVlog: How to Teach a Puppy to Retrieve
A puppy’s mind is fully capable of learning at an early age, so there is no need to consider putting off his or her education. What we do need to consider is how that education happens. My puppy controls when we move ahead to the next level of difficulty in our training by the success […]
Continue readingWhat’s a Reward for Your Dog? List of Reinforcers
I’ve been blogging about dog training, dog behaviour, dog agility and dogs in general, with a few diversions, for many years now …. far more years than I probably thought when I wrote my first ever blog post. Over the years the topic of reinforcement has featured in many of my posts. In 2009 I […]
Continue reading
