Calm on Command K9

We believe engagement through games is the best way to nurture an ideal relationship with our dog while also teaching the meaning of commands and verbal markers. Before we can begin teaching anything it is essential to create a foundation of engagement with a clear understanding of our verbal marker system; YES, GOOD, and NOPE. Yes is our release marker. Good is our continuous marker. Nope means you’re not winning the game. When first teaching the meaning of commands it’s important to keep motivation up by marking and releasing the dog from a behavior with the reinforcement marker YES as soon as they’ve completed the command. To increase motivation even more we make the food reward more prey based by enthusiastic movement away from the dog. This get’s our dog chasing the food from our hand, and chasing is a self rewarding behavior for a dog. In addition, this creates a sense of purpose and a job for our dog because all meals are earned by playing the game.

Training should be fun for you and your dog. Our games approach to training is not only a great relationship building activity between you and your dog. It simulates a job. It’s a way to practice turning excitement off. It gets your dog taking direction from you in an excited state. It’s how we teach the foundation of all communication. Through games we learn that following rules can be rewarding. Staying in the boundaries makes the game fun. But most importantly, following directions from coach is always helping us win the game. If you want to know how to become your dogs coach, we’d love to help.