02/10/2025
Mayer has been working on his settle cue inside the house and outside the house, but wasn’t learning to switch off and would bark at his owners when the treats weren’t given fast enough 😬
In our last session we walked to the cafe, popped his settle mat down, and just started talking 🧐
We didn’t give him treats, reward settle (sounds odd I know!!!), and we asked people around us to ignore him too.
Mayer wasn’t distressed, stressed, anxious, frustrated… he just laid down and settled! 🤯
As a force free trainer I use rewards, I probably sometimes use too many rewards and anticipate dogs not being able to progress because we need to phase out the food slowly and teach things first, but with Mayer, this was teaching him to be in training mode, and not to settle.
This worked because Mayer was able to switch off, but wouldn’t have worked if he started to get agitated.
During our session, a dog barked in a nearby car outside and Mayer shot up, ears forward and started to get agitated.
We just walked him away from our seats and gave him a short walk to decompress, using food to reward his heel work and scatter feeding for some decompression time.
The dogs went, Mayer returned to his settle spot, and guess what? He settled!
This is something we are going to try with Mayer, still practising a settle cue at home, and still being prepped with enrichment if he needs an extra something whilst in a cafe.
What if he didn’t settle? What would we do?
-look at our timing of food rewards
-look at value of food rewards
-start off at home or in low distractions
-reward calm behaviours e.g disengaging from owner, lowering head, changing to a settled position..
Why didn’t we reward his settle? Because Mayer was happy to lay down and switch off! Interrupting this, for Mayer, hypes him up and distracts him.
Rules for settling in cafes/ pubs
-please let my dog settle and stop touching them
-my dog can play with your dog at the park or on a walk, I want my dog to rest
-not every dog CAN and WILL settle in these scenarios and that’s okay! These environments can be very over stimulating and even with training they’re not suitable
