Just think about what would happen if you had to act on every thought that ran through your mind?
You would never be able to focus on a task for a reasonable amount of time because of all the distractions you would find impossible to resist.
Building a huge reward history in your dog’s ability to focus on you and the tasks at hand despite distractions is my goal for you and your dog. This will enable your dog to differentiate the importance of the many stimuli happening at any point in time and give him the ability to sort out the important information he needs to pay attention to. For example: Coming to you when called or leaving trash on the sidewalk or not jumping up or begging when you eat or staying in place even when other dogs or cats or people walk by. Some people call it impulse control but I like to see it as the ability to focus despite distractions.
When I instill puppy manners such as teaching your dog to ask politely for attention, food and toys, teaching him to leave tempting things and redirect his focus onto you voluntarily or settling or sitting despite distractions are an essential part of teaching your dog to be well mannered. That is why I teach, practice and reward all of those skills with distractions as well! Your dog will be able to choose those behaviors because he has been rewarded and “paid”=learned to do so. I will show you how tremendously useful it is to allow your dog the time to think things through without nagging. At DogRelations I show you how to incorporate and elicit manners automatically from your dog so that your “basic obedience skills” actually work to create a deep sense of communication. For example, “sit” taught out of context is really only a “trick” that you have to ask and not that helpful to allow your puppy to be well behaved. But creating a situation in which the puppy can make the choice on his own is very useful. For example: you can teach your dog to sit when you put your hand onto a door handle.Let me show you how simple this process can be and how satisfying the results are! Contact me today.