I recently have a dog; an American Bulldog / Boxer mix. She is a sweetheart. However, even though she was eleven months old when we got her, she was not fully qualified. Poor U.S. Wait, poor her. You see, what a dog wants to do is have a goal. Dogs are programmed to do things. Naturally, they spend all day hunting for food, they are burrowing animals, and they enjoy pleasing their owner.
There’s a lot of talk about being the pack leader, alpha dog, and all that mess, but what it really comes down to is finding something the dog enjoys and using it as a reward. I taught my dog to flop down simply by using kibble and his favorite toy. I have a great game of search and every time she brought the toy she wanted a good game of “Tug of War”. What I did was grab some croquettes and say, “Get off!” then offer croquettes.
Slowly but surely he realized, “When I drop this toy, I get food!” After about 15 minutes of working with her, she would drop the toy the moment I said, “Let go!” After that, I slowly removed the kibbles and the payoff quickly became being able to play fetch again. It’s amazing how fast it worked. That changed the dog’s mindset from “If I drop this toy, I get food” to “If I drop this toy, I can play with the toy again.”
The idea was simply to use what she loved (food) to reward her for doing what I wanted (to drop). Honestly, it took him 15-20 minutes to figure out what I wanted. You can apply this technique to almost any aspect of dog training.
The main problem that arises when training different dogs is the fact that some of them are not very receptive to food. The goal in this situation is simply to find something the dog likes. It can be a toy, an activity like going for a walk or playing fetch, or a stuffed animal that you like to take with you. He then uses it as a reward for the command he’s trying to teach him.
So, instead of teaching a dog to loosen up using kibble like I did to my dog, simply give your dog a less valuable toy and when he is playing with it say “loosen up!” and give him a toy of greater value. After changing the toy, it is important to return the original toy to the dog. In this way you will see that when the dog falls it will also recover the original toy. This is imperative because it will show that it is okay to drop because you get your toy back. Soon you will see the dog learn before your eyes.
You can apply these principles to almost any aspect of dog training. However, what works for me obviously won’t work for everyone. The most important thing is to start with easy dog tricks. When it comes to dog training, all it really takes is something the dog enjoys, a dedicated owner, and a little time. If you have those three things, you will see your dog grow and your relationship with the dog will grow as well. Watching your relationship grow with your dog is quite an enjoyable experience, not only for you, but for your dog as well. So get out there and get down to business with that pup! You will not regret.