Dog Training and Behavior Consulting serving the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago

A common misconception about dog training is that it’s all about the “commands”; you have to teach the commands, or else your dog won’t do XYZ. As you were training new behaviors you would repeat the ‘command’ over and over and over again in the hopes of eventually drilling the word into the dog. “Sit sit sit sit sit sit sit sit sit sit GOOOOOOOOOOD sit” We are obsessed with making sure the dog KNOWS what we mean, thinking that it’s the secret to getting our dogs to listen. B

I’m going to start this blog post with a story; it’s going to seem like a longwinded, irrelevant story, but I promise I have a point! Just stick with me. Way back in August (remember summer? I miss summer!) I was walking Regis and Phoebe; when it’s nice out we typically walk 2-3 miles, sometimes 4. It’s a great way to start our day and keeps the dogs happy so I can get some work done later on. On our walks Regis and Phoebe can sniff as much as they’d like as long as there is

This is probably one of the top 3 questions I get asked as a dog trainer, and I totally get it! Having to remember to bring treats and tangible reinforcers like toys when we first start training our dogs can be a lot of extra work for us. It's one extra thing to add to our to do list in an already too-busy world, one more thing to have to think about. And we've heard for SO LONG that our dogs should just 'do it for us', right? So when can we fade the food and move to just rei