Training Framework

It will be important for you to dive into the Dog Adventures Northwest “How-To” articles, using each detailed write-up as a road map for teaching a particular skill. As you go through the material, though, you may note that many of the articles employ similar strategies to get a dog to exhibit a specific behavior (and then to do so reliably when cued). 

I’ve detailed most of these things already, but putting them all together in one list may be helpful to you as you flex your training muscles. Because, once you understand the basic format for teaching operant skills, you can apply the elements to teach… well… just about anything.

Got something you want to teach your puppy that I haven’t already covered? Use the following components to create training games of your own! 

Identify the Desired Behavior

First, figure out what specific behavior you would like to teach your puppy. When teaching “drop it” for example, the actual description of the desired action would be “Puppy opens their jaws while holding an item.” Once you can pinpoint a specific action, you can zero in on the exact thing you want to increase through training. Here are some common cues and their “clicker picture,” or the exact moment you want to mark with a click or a marker word (followed immediately by a treat, of course).

• Sit: Puppy’s hindquarters resting on the ground
• Down: Puppy’s belly resting on the ground
• Come: Puppy booping their nose against your fist
• Drop-It: Puppy opening their jaws while holding an item
• Leave-It: Puppy looking away from an item

Note that if you would like to teach a behavior chain (a successive display of discrete behaviors), you may need to break down each part of the chain into its basic components, and follow this process with each identified behavior. Teaching a dog to fetch, for example, is actually teaching the following discrete behaviors: go to an item, pick up the item, bring the item to the handler, drop the item. Some dogs (retrievers, for example) may not need the behavior chain broken down for them, as the sequence is already in their DNA. For a different breed, however, it may be necessary to train each separate component before putting them together.

Capture the Desired Behavior

Manipulate your dog’s environment so that they are more likely to perform the desired behavior. Get creative! Catch your dog in the act by clicking/marking when they perform that specific behavior and follow up with a reward. (Read through the Training Mechanics article below for more info!)

Wait for the “Lightbulb Moment”

When you capture and reward a behavior, you will notice that your dog will start to organically offer the behavior more and more often. This will, in turn, give you more instances of the behavior to capture and reward. Which will, in turn, encourage your dog to offer the specific behavior more often… and so on.

Eventually, you will get a dog that is enthusiastically “throwing” repetitions of the behavior at you. And then… flash!... the lightbulb will go off in your dog’s brain. “Wait a minute,” they will excitedly think… “I AM MAKING THE TREATS HAPPEN BY DOING A SPECIFIC THING! THIS IS SO GREAT!”

Put the Behavior On Cue

When you have a dog that is intentionally and enthusiastically performing a behavior, you can put the behavior “on cue” by saying the word for the behavior right before they do that behavior. After 30-50 repetitions of pairing the word with the behavior, it will start to become clear to your dog that the sound coming out of your mouth is actually a cue for the behavior. (Read through the Training Mechanics article below for more info!)

Proof the Behavior

To teach your dog that “down” means putting their belly on the ground here, there, and everywhere, it will be important to train “down” here, there, and everywhere, starting from the beginning of the process every time you change something in your dog’s environment. (Read through the Training Mechanics article below for more info!)

Once you understand these key concepts, you may very well not need me anymore (sniff, sniff). I’m doing my job, though, if I give you the tools you need to initially train your dog… and then to revisit as time goes on. (Remember that having a dog means training a dog for the entire lifetime of the dog!)