The NUMBER ONE STRATEGY to a Well Behaved Dog

Do you know the number one strategy to a well behaved dog? It's not a special type of training tool, it's not a special training technique, it's not impulse control training, it's not going through doors first or making sure your dog knows you're the boss. It's this:

ENRICHMENT.

What is enrichment? Enrichment is the process of fulfilling all of an animal's species typical and species appropriate behaviors. Our pet dogs are technically captive animals; that's not to say that they don't enjoy living with us, BUT our normal, average human environment rarely offers enough enrichment opportunities for our dogs on it's own. It takes special thought and effort to arrange our dog's world to be more enriching.

And when we don't make that extra effort? We end up with dogs who are bored, destructive, overly vocal, pushy, "demanding", "obnoxious", and any other number of negative labels. If you do not meet your dog's basic needs for mental and physical enrichment no amount of training will help. Many, many of our dog's problem behaviors are caused by under stimulated, bored dogs who are not having their needs met. And that's a problem that needs fixing!