Saturday, April 10, 2010

Proofing A Behavior


Proofing is when you use every possible way to train a behavior so that your dog is reliable in every situation

All the dogs know how to sit it's just that I want to make sure they will obey me no matter where I am. I used a hand signal to get them to sit. Many dogs will respond faster to a hand signal than a verbal cue. I don't know if that means that dogs are more visual learners that verbal. Most of the time the nose will win out over all that. I once watched a Mythbusters where they were able to distract a guard dog with steak. I know my dogs are more willing to learn if I have food in my hands.

I added a signal by first giving the signal and then saying the command. The signal goes first so that they will relate the hand signal with the command.

So two things to learn from today are that food will be able to draw a dog from distractions and put the hand signal first if they know the verbal command to teach the new signal.

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