Unleash your dog’s full potential
Training Philosophy
Timing
We have 1.3 seconds to influence our dog’s understanding of cause and effect. Sometimes we have even less time. Having great timing is critical to clear communication with our dog.
Consistency
We must provide a consistent set of rules for our dog. This is important to maintain to minimize conflict within your dog. The more consistent we are about creating and maintaining behaviors, the faster these behaviors become habitual.
Markers
One of the first steps of the training process includes charging the marker with something that’s meaningful.
Through this, an action that is ordinarily mundane to the dog (the sound of a clicker, a vocalized command, etc.) obtains meaning through following it with what the dog wants (for example, food). This is how your dog will learn to respond to all of your commands.
During this process, we believe it’s important to understand the timing between the cue (the marker) and the reward. All we want is to mark the specific behavior that we desire from the dog. We are careful to include a split-second delay between giving the marker and reaching for or delivering the reward. This way, your dog understands the difference between the marker and the reward. Otherwise, dogs can become confused by things like misplaced body language, potentially ruining their training.
Motivation
What will make a dog work? Food, pets, a ball or toy; anything physical that they enjoy.
We extinguish behaviors with correction collars that provide an uncomfortable feeling. We can also withhold rewards to create a negative, and make bad things go away to create a positive experience. We use positive and negative reinforcement and punishment, classical and operant conditioning.