Creative training....In a nutshell
What is creative training ? It’s the training that shapes your dog’s brain, to help him take the right decision whatever the situation.
It’s not « just » training for a sit, a down or a stay.
It’s training for a BOMB PROOF sit, down or stay.
It’s training for a FLIPPING RECALL, even in presence of a running cat.
It all starts with....A BRAIN
Every dog has a brain, in which lie SKILLS or EMOTIONS like fear, calmness, excitment, optimism, confidence…..
Let’s think of these skills as boxes, full of BEHAVIOURS.
When confronted with an event, dogs choose the box they experience at the moment and pick up a behaviour from it.
From the FEAR box, you dog may choose barking, biting, pulling on lead…
From the EXCITMENT box, you dog may choose barking, biting, pulling on lead…
From the CALMNESS box, the dog can choose walking nicely on lead, staying calm in front the neighbour’s cat…
From the OPTIMISM box, the dog can choose walking nicely on lead, staying chilled face to novelty…
You get the picture : NO appropriate behaviour can come out of the fear or excitment box. All dogs are good dogs…. Even the naughtiest ones !! but GREAT DOGS ARE…….ZEN DOGS
Practice makes perfection….
This is particularly true for dogs, who make choice 24/7 !
So…...the more your dog practices barking, the more likely he is to bark whatever the context, whatever the situation.
On the flip side, the more your dog rehearses calm, optimism and confidence…...The more he will be calm, optimistic and confident.
Let’s reshape your dog’s brain through 3 minutes games !
By PLAYING 3 MINUTES GAMES with your dog, you will reshape its brain so that the « bad boxes » will become …...unopened.
Let’s take an example : we dog owners all love a calm and quiet household. So how can we stop a dog from barking? Let’s focus on what we DO want : a calm and confident dog, who does not feel the need to react to any single noise he hears.
A great dog is a calm dog, as we said before. To grow calmness in a dog, we will for example choose ways of feeding him through activities that, by nature, are calming. Like sniffing his kibbles in the grass, or licking a lick mat. We will also teach him that being calm is rewarding.
To make a dog more confident, he needs to understand that novelty is a good thing, and that he is able to handle it. So we will create « safe novelty » and match it with a positive outcome (like a treat). And gradually, we will highten the level of novelty, gradually building your dog’s confidence.
Dog training 24/7 easy peasy
Dogs are learning 24/7, so they can be trained 24/7. This does not mean you have to skip sleeping or working !!
But you can incorporate in your everyday life some tools that will greatly help your training.
1 - Ditch the bowl
Our dogs wake up every morning with a POT OF GOLD : their daily food allowance. We can decide when, where and how that pot of gold is divided, and feed our dog as and when we want, to around our lifestyle.
2 - Ditch the routine
Dogs are born predicting. Starting with where to find the "milk bar", all the way through to when it’s time for their walk, when you leave for work and when you’re coming home. The anticipation can be as good as the event itself. But prediction is exhausting.
Our dogs then spend their day in a continuous state of high alert, of expectation. This anticipation can lead to pacing, barking, whining and reactiveness to apparently unthreatening things.
Imagine being able to take away the stress of anticipation from your dog, so that they can just experience the pleasure of a car journey or a walk, feeling nothing but calmness and relaxation.
3 – Calmness is king
Because a calm dog is a gift to the world !