Positive Attitude
Speaker: Positive attitude is another one of those tricks of the trade that can't be overemphasized. How you are feeling goes directly down your leashing to your dog. So if you're feeling cheerful, your dog is feeling cheerful. Every time before you start a lesson or do any training with your dog, I want you to check your attitude. If it's not good, I say it's better to wait and start a lesson later so that your dog has that good, happy feeling when you're starting your lesson.
Think about a time that you're really stressed out. Say you're at work, you're stressed out, and your boss comes in at that exact moment and says okay, we've got this new phone system and you need to learn how to use it right now. That's not going to be you at your best. Just like your dog is not going to be at his best if he stressed out. So keep the positive attitude in mind every time you're working with your dog.
Passive Training
Passive training is an extremely easy thing for you to do with your dog. You can do it any time you're around the dog, and any time your dog does anything, you can use passive training to your advantage. If there is something that you want your dog to learn, say to look at you, which is lesson one; we will talk about that in a few minutes, and your dog looks at you for whatever reason, praise your dog, use your verbal treat. You can also give your dog a pat or a scratch.
Every time your dog sits, just naturally, your dog is around the house or outside and starts moving into a sit; as soon as the dog gets into that sit position, say the word sit. This is what passive training is. It reinforces to the dog that it moves into the sit position when you say a specific word. Very easy to do, and it increases your training time that you have with your dog, every single day.
You can do it with sit, you can do it with down or lay, depending on what word you want to use. You can use it for look, which is lesson one. You can use it for come. As the dog takes the last couple of steps towards you, put your hand out, say come, and touch your dog's collar. We will discuss that more in a future lesson.
Before we get started, there's a few things that you need to know. One of those things is to use your normal voice volume when giving your dog a command. This encourages your dog to pay attention and listen to you all of the time, not just when you're using a specific tone or talking in a loud voice.
When training your dog, you need to use specific words for each command. I urge you to choose whichever word works for you. In the lessons I use words that I have found that work for me. Feel free to choose whatever words make sense to you.
You will need to choose a release word. This is the word that signifies to the dog that the lesson is over and they can go back to being themselves; whatever doggy things that they want to do. I use the word okay; its simple, easy to remember, and gets the point across quickly.
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