PAWS Dog Training

09/11/2023

🐾 Supercharge Your Dog's Skills: Master the Nose Touch Trick! 🚀🐶💥

Step 1: Treats That Rock 🌟🦴
Start with treats that make your pup's tail wag with delight! Choose their absolute favorites to get them fired up.

Step 2: Reach Out and Tease 🤲🏻✨
Extend your hand with a treat just out of reach, igniting your dog's curiosity.

Step 3: Nose Boop & Celebration 🐽🎉
When your dog's nose touches your hand, let the celebration begin! Reward them with a treat and a burst of enthusiasm.

Step 4: Spice it Up with a Cue 🎙️
Introduce a magic word like "touch" before presenting your hand, adding a dash of excitement to the trick.

Step 5: Conquer the World 🌍
Show off your dog's newfound talent in different spots to prove they're the true masters of the nose touch!

Have you and your dog mastered this one? It's a brilliant one to add value to proximity and to build focus - and once you’ve taught a Nose Touch you can transfer the learning to other objects and use it as the basis for teaching so many tricks and skills! 📸🐾

Keen to add fun purposeful tricks to your dog's repertoire? Our awesome Tricks bundles have you covered! 🐕🎩✨

Pre-order NOW and grab one of our bewitching pre-order bundles and skyrocket your trick training journey to new heights of success: https://absolute-dogs.com/product/trick-or-treat-bundles/

07/08/2023

02/08/2023

The dog decides what’s reinforcing (or punishing). Not us.

You might wish that your dog would find your praise reward enough but if they don’t, they don’t! If your dog won’t work for kibble then you might need to up your offer and try something higher value like hot dog or chicken. If your dog isn’t excited by food you might need to try play instead.

Whether something is reinforcing (ie is increasing or strengthening a behaviour) is determined by outcomes, not intentions. If you’re seeing no increase in the behaviour you’re trying to teach despite rewarding it every time then that’s a good indication that (amongst other possibilities) your choice of reward might need to be reconsidered.

And think out of the box. What’s one of Charlie’s highest value reinforcers? Cucumber!

20/07/2023

Four fabulous teams passed their Silver Good Citizens award tonight. Thank you Sarah Jones for assessing. Onwards to the Gold!!

20/07/2023

Three lovely pups passed the Kennel club Bronze Good Citizens award. Well done to all and thank you Sarah Jones for assessing tonight.

11/07/2023

𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙄 𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙? 𝘿𝙤 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙?

For the vast majority of dogs food is an effective reinforcer of behaviour. It's high value, highly motivating and highly likely to speed up the teaching of new behaviours. It's a necessary part of our dogs' daily lives so if we can use it thoughtfully* why wouldn't we? And it's easy for us to work with. So why are we often in such a hurry to stop using food when it's an effective, efficient & easy reinforcer?

I wonder whether the hesitancy is because we feel that we shouldn't have to? That we feel our dogs should 'just do it'? That we are somehow spoiling them by reinforcing the desirable behaviours they offer?

Or are we just more comfortable with punishment than reinforcement? Our society is built on a punitive model where we often behave to avoid punishment - we slow down at traffic cameras to avoid a fine or we don't talk in class to avoid a row from the teacher. So perhaps it's not surprising that sometimes reinforcing desirable behaviour doesn't come as naturally as punishing undesirable behaviour.

Being reluctant to use food to reinforce the behaviours we like but willing to use force to punish behaviours we don't is a perspective that's worth thinking about more deeply.

If we want to teach and maintain new behaviours they need to be reinforced by something. Because if they're not they'll fade away. Effective trainers reinforce consistently & generously. Food is just one of many reinforcers open to us but it has lots of advantages so don't be afraid to use it, especially in the early stages of training.

* 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘨𝘦𝘵, 𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘳

28/06/2023

For my classes, teaching the Hand Touch.