Day 1 Begin with the dumbbell either on the ground or in your hand. On the ground works fine unless the dog wants to hit it with his front feet. We want to reinforce any interaction with the dumbbell, but OTOH, we don’t want to reinforce anything we’ll have to get rid of later, such [...]
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Acknowledgements
While I have learned from many dog trainers over the years, a few stand out. Thanks to Glen Johnson, who early in the 80s taught me about inducive training. And also to Bill Dotson, who introduced us to Schutzhund and Search & Rescue.
Thanks Tracey Louper for letting me help teach classes, and being my friend and sounding board for new dog training ideas.
Special thanks to friend and mentor Michael Ellis. Michael is a gifted dog trainer and teacher, and almost everything I use and teach these days comes from Michael.
And thanks to Ivan Balabanov, who started our club, Big Sky Schutzhund Club, on the way to becoming thinking dog trainers.
Shaping
Shaping: teaching a new behaviour by rewarding successively closer approximations of the target behaviour.