Using food as a reward and using it as bribery are two different things. Although it is easy for the average owner to mistakenly use bribery when using food as the reward.

Bribery is when you ask your dog to do a behavior, he ignores you and you pull out a treat, show it to him and ask him to do it again. Bribery is when you use a treat to lure him into doing something. Bribery is when you say, “look at what I have now come see me.”

When we use food as a reward, we do it differently. We never show the dog we have it or wave it in front of his nose, and we also don’t give our dog commands that the dog isn’t consistent in doing. We wait for the behavior to occur and then treat when it does. The dog doesn’t learn to see the treat and then do the behavior, instead, he learns to do the behavior to make the treat appear. Once the dog is consistently offering the behavior, the command is added and the food is slowly shaped away from that particular behavior. Rewarding appropriately is saying, “come see me and I’ll show you what I have.”

If you find yourself using food in a bribery fashion and can’t seem to get out of it, please email me or give me a call and schedule a private training lesson modified just for you. I will help you stop your bad habit in no time.

Do you always feel the need to tell your dog what to do, when to do it and how to do it?

When we insist on telling our dog everything to do, we aren’t allowing the dog to think on his own and learn the real life manners he needs to be a part of your pack. You aren’t allowing him to use his brain or to build up confidence. If you allow your dog to begin using his brain, being sure to only reward the behavior that you like, he will learn quickly and the behavior will be solid. Once he is doing the behavior consistently, you can put a command to it for those times you need to instruct him.

Your dog has a brain, let him use it. If you find that you can’t keep your mouth shut, use this great, proven, technique.

You will need to get a roll of duct tape and gently place it over your mouth. Since you will be unable to tell your dog “good boy” for doing the right behavior, you will need an assistant. Please be careful when removing the duct tape, it is known to be a better hair remover than Wax or Nair could ever dream of being. Or, you can give me a call and I’ll walk you through it without pulling out any of your hair.

Happy Tails

Proverbs 12:10

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