Baby Steps in Dog Training

When you are working with your dog and come upon an obstacle, break it down into as many steps as you can.

This gives your dog the chance to have many small successes, as you guide your dog to make the right choice.

This also makes it easier to isolate the behavior that you are teaching, so you don’t correct away a good behavior that happened to be included.

For example, if your dog freaks out when visitors come over, ask yourself “How many steps can I break this down into?” and work on those before it is needed (the visitor arrives).

These might include:
– a solid sit, down, or place, near the door, and holding that while…
– you walk to the door
– you touch the door
– you touch the doorknob
– you jingle the doorknob
– you knock on the door
– you open the door a bit
– you open the door wide
– you talk to an imaginary person outside the door, still paying attention to your dog
– you talk to an imaginary person outside the door, paying attention to the outside
– you walk outside to greet the imaginary person
– you reach outside and ring the doorbell
– you have a family member or friend (or dog trainer) be the imaginary person

These steps may seem like they take forever, however we can do all of these, with multiple repetitions, in about 10 minutes.

If your dog makes a bad decision (barking, rushing the door, etc), you are asking for too much, too soon. It is better to take a step back to where your dog was more comfortable and when your dog is successful at least 3 times in a row, make it a little harder.

By breaking an obstacle into small, successful attempts, your dog’s confidence and trust in you grows exponentially, leading to your dream dog.