There are, literally, a million ways to reinforce your doggo and, therefore, your shared relationship. Recently, I was asked if I only had 3 skills that I could teach/reinforce with (my) dogs, what would they be?
My answer, in order of priority:
- offered attention
- requested attention*
- Mat Relaxation
What?! No "sit" or "stay" or "with me" or "off"? Nope, not really. Especially for the relationships I curate with my personal Wildlings. Let's talk about them...
Why those 3?
Offered attention is the very definition of relationship: I choose to see you...and I will paycheck heavily for that. This is where your dog does frequent drive-bys to check in or say hello and, PLEASE, reinforce them (even if it's "just" eye contact and a party voice "hey there!"). The more offered attention is reinforced, the easier e-v-e-r-y-thing else becomes. An example of this here.
Requested attention is recall, attention-getting, ignoring 'things' in the environment. Essentially it's recognizing that you, human, are (in)valuable and worth returning to. (And that you've put in some amazing work building a solid relationship). This is every kissy face, sing-song voice, recall whistle...all of it. Example here.
Mat Relaxation is the ability to settle, truly relaxed just about anywhere in many, many environments. A critical lifeskill for my Wildlings. It's an emotional connection to being chill versus being told to go "stay," "go to bed," or "place." I live and breathe by this excerpt from the Laura VanArendonk book Fired Up, Frantic & Freaked Out.
What would your top 3 be? Gimme the scoop....
* I also heavily favor teaching "standing still" as a highly-reinforceable behavior as early as possilbe! Why? Because it helps prevent a wealth of less desirable stuffs...like jumping.
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