Where is your dog anticipating the reward?

Reward placement matters!

If you’re struggling with maintaining behaviours, I want you to have a think about where the reinforcement is coming from.

If your dog is always anticipating the reward for their down to be anywhere other than in the down, they’ll be anticipating breaking the down to get that reward. We can shift the reward to being right between their front feet in the down position to build stability.

If your dog is always anticipating that their biggest reward on a walk is up in front (eg the dog park!), getting polite calm walking will be a lot harder. We can mix up which way we go, where we end up (ie it’s not always the dog park), make pulling less comfortable, and make the walk and engaging with us more fun and enjoyable.

If your dog needs a start line stay for a sport like agility or just struggles to be calm at the door - chances are you always reward forward (ie release them to the jumps, or out the door to freedom) and they’re anticipating that. If you instead reward to them, behind them etc and mix it up, they’ll be less likely to break forward.

Sometimes we need to manage the environment to prevent access to reinforcement outside of our control while we build the value where we want it. Sometimes we need to change up what and how we’re reinforcing the dog. But it all starts by asking - where is the reinforcement coming from, and how do we shift that to get the behaviours we want to see.

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Need help with your dog? 📧 hello@wolfedogs.nz

Waipa & Hamilton NZ