13/07/2025
🐾 To Treat or not to Treat 🐾
Figuring out what motivates and drives your dog is key in dog training. When working with a food motivated dog I'm often asked, "will I always need to carry food around with me forever". The answer is no, provided your dog is correctly trained.
There are three main phases when training a dog, the learning phase, the proofing phase and the maintenance phase. Each of these phases have different levels of reinforcement (how often you reward/pay your dog). You often have to flip between phases.
Another often overlooked but critical element in dog training is building a relationship and bond with your dog. Training should be all about having fun with your dog and in my opinion, you will get far better results and a happier dog, than training like a drill sergeant.
I have posted videos of working through the different phases of Wallace's recall in the past and as you can see, he is now coming when called without any kind of payment. As a result of play and building a strong bond I have managed to tap into his pack drive. No treats no tools, he just comes back because he chooses to.
That doesn't mean I will never reward him whilst maintaining his recall especially around huge distractions but this video proves that with work it can be achieved.
