Positive Learning Experience

[BioGhost]

I just read a post reply by LuckyPenny and I quote from that post "The dog will always be looking to you for it's stimulation rather than looking elsewhere"

I think this is probably the biggest key to success in training a dog. However this is a difficult task to accomplish and learn for alot of people, me being one of them.

This forum seems to be filled with experienced Dog owners and caring individuals, so do people care to share their experiences on how they managed to accomplish this feat?

I'll start: Logan learns alot faster when I play the "Mine" game with him. Where I take one of his bones or toys and tell him it is mine. He gets excited and then I can work with him on such things as sitting down, take nice, etc.

[luckypenny]

You know your dog well, that's the first, most important step .

Penny loves food and playing fetch/tug...I can get her to do just about anything for either.

Ava loves verbal praise and physical affection .

Lucky will charge through hell and high water to get to me if I have a brush in hand . He also loves being touched.

It takes time though, nothing good comes overnight. Penny has aggression issues with strangers, and Lucky has an incredible prey drive, and Ava can become easily overwhelmed and grumpy with young rambunctious fosters around. But with time, positive learning experiences, and most importantly, their trust in me to do the right thing by them, things are always getting better .

[TeriM]

Lucy is always all about the food but she is also thirteen and not that hard to deal with these days .

Riley is a much harder choice. I walk a very fine line with him between rewarding and over stimulating. I would love to use a ball more to reward but at this stage he is still obsessed and that shuts off his brain. I have had some good recent success using a tug ball instead . I have to be careful while working and rewarding with play on a release command to not get him to hyped up. Food of course is always excellent although again he loses interest when overstimulated. The more I work with him the greater his self-control develops and I am able to use more stimulating rewards and then have him settle right back down again .

[TeriM]

I should add that Riley loves to work and that is a reward to him all by itself .