🐶 Your dog is naturally wired to love these 4 things: Use them to teach behaviors you like!
Happy National Pet Day! Today I’m going to tell you about the 4 things dogs naturally love, and how to use them to teach your dog behaviors us humans appreciate.
🐾 Happy National Pet Day!
You probably already knew that your dog loves these 4 things in life. It’s like they come pre-programmed to love these things and you don’t have to teach them.
Recognizing them helps us understand certain behaviors and more importantly, how we can use them to get behaviors we like, like not pulling on leash or darting out the door.
🌳 1. The Outdoors
Dogs LOVE being outside.
That’s why:
- Dogs pull on leash
- They ignore you mid-walk
- They get overstimulated and it appears they can’t hear you
How to use it:
- Stop your dog from running out the door and trampling your feet!
- When leaving the house, open the door and stand in the opening, facing your dog.
- As soon as your dog looks at you, say good girl/boy.
- Step through the opening and wave your dog through with a big arm sweep.
- Here’s a link to download a step-by-step document on how to teach threshold training.
👤 2. Meeting People
Dogs are social. People = reward.
That’s why:
- They drag you toward strangers.
- They jump on people when they meet them.
How to use it:
- Help your dog build impulse control.
- Only move toward the person that wants to meet your dog when your dog isn’t pulling.
- Sounds simple, but it takes practice and good timing on your part.
- Best to first practice with a patient friend.
- The life reward of meeting this person is why your dog will learn quickly, “I only get to meet when I’m not pulling.”
- If your dog jumps on the person, end the meeting.
- Here’s a link to a blog post and a step-by-step document on how to stop jumping.
🐕 3. Meeting Other Dogs
For many dogs, meeting other dogs is a high priority in their lives. Use it!
That’s why:
- Your dog may pull toward other dogs when they see them on walks.
- Most owners learn to avoid this by just moving along, but this often results in frustration for your dog, which often displays as barking and lunging behavior.
- They “forget” their training and seem unable to hear you.
How to use it:
- I don’t think on-leash greetings are a great idea in general, unless you know the other dog or you’re good at reading dog body language, and how to assess dogs that would be good to meet.
- However, if you set up a planned meeting with a neighbor and their dog, you can use the no pulling concept to teach your dog not to pull on leash.
- The most important thing to remember is that this may take 20 – 30 minutes the first few times. Be patient.
- Only move toward the other dog when your dog isn’t pulling you.
- Stand on the leash when your dog is consistently pulling and wait for calm behavior before trying to move forward.
- Don’t pull back or jerk on the leash. Remain calm.
🦴 4. Chewing and Bones
Dogs are built to chew. Bones are one of the highest-value rewards you can give your dog, but don’t just give them a bone, reinforce a good behavior and then give the bone as a reward.
How to use it:
- First, teach your dog a basic hand target, which serves as a recall. Use this step-by-step document. It’s easy and fun.
- Add a verbal cue to the skill and practice everywhere.
- When your dog comes all the time in low to medium distraction environments when you use the verbal cue, instead of giving them their usual praise and medium-grade food reward, give them emphatic praise and an extra special reward, like a frozen cow femur bone. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do this right.
- This is known not just in the dog training world but in basic psychology as the Premack Principle.
- Check out this recall from Watson. This is regular reward, but he’s learned to come to me 100% of the time because we’ve used life rewards in his training.
Important:
- Even a sweet dog may guard a bone, so be careful when picking it up by using a distraction.
- Don’t try to just take it from them.
- Ask your vet first (especially puppies/seniors).
Safe approach:
- Use raw cow femur bones.
- Give them frozen.
- Never cooked.
💡 Bonus: You can usually get these cheap from a butcher or grocery store. Skip the overpriced pet store bones.
🎯 The Takeaway
Whenever we teach a dog a skill, good trainers know that more difficult skills require a more salient or higher-value reward. You can’t get a reward higher than those that have a life reward value – so good they make life better!
So, use these simple desires to promote calm behavior, impulse control, and a strong recall, which is probably the most important skill you can teach a dog.
