Hope everyone had a great Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa or whatever you do or don’t celebrate.
Little Scarlett got some great gifts but the best one was a chalk board. I immediately sat down with her after breakfast to teach her the four behavior quadrants.
I showed her Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Positive Punishment and Negative Punishment.
I then explained how each one is used to teach our dogs how to do obedience.
She looked bored and started to play with her wooden pizza.
Two years old and she didn’t want to sit and listen to me explain behavior. I don’t understand it.
I was about to explain how to use positive reinforcement to train a dog, that fast, effective training is done with markers.
A clicker or the word “Yes” or “Good” are paired with something the dog likes. Teaching markers can speed up the training process because your dog understands what the reinforcement is for.
Last week, my neighbor’s asked if I could watch their four month old Great Dane while they were on vacation.
Being the good neighbor that I am I said, “Sure.”
I forgot how a Great Dane is like having a cow in the house. The amount of urine they can release is incredible. Not to mention the size of their poop.
Since our guest was not fully housetrained, I got busy. I started to teach him a marker to help with his housetraining.
I grabbed a handful of treats and started to pair the word “Yes” with treats. I repeated this until I said the word “Yes” when he was not looking and turned his head.
Now I had a word or “marker” that I could use to let him know he had just performed the correct behavior – you just peed in the correct place.
This can also be done with a clicker. Either way teaching and using markers is the fastest, most effective way to train your dog.
And you know what? If you’re looking for more dog training help, you can get it for just one dollar. You can join the Dog Training Inner Circle for just a buck.
See for yourself by going here NEXT:
Best,
Eric