Tag Archives: operant conditioning

Today is the first day of …

What is your dog doing right now?  OK, good, she’s lying on her bed, being quiet, maybe even sleeping.  So you have time to read this short post. Your dog has the self-assigned task of watching you all day, every day, as long as you are in the same space. This is how she knows when it’s time to go for a walk, when dinner is going to be served, when you are preparing to leave for a while –

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When Pigs Fly – a seminar

I audited a Jane Killion seminar a couple of weeks ago at Love on a Leash in Harrisonburg VA. Just received the book yesterday from Amazon (should have read it before so I’d know what to ask, hate to ask questions that are covered in a book that I should have read). Jane was wonderful. Maybe I’ll always be impressed by the experts. Maybe? Certainly. They are experts, of course. That’s why we pay them the big bucks for the

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Not sure about clicker training? Here are some reasons to try it

Clicker training is a wonderful way to teach your dog any behavior. Clicker-trained dogs are more than trained – they are excited about learning, interested in what you might teach them next. They become active participants in the training game, rather than automatons that don’t think and merely perform at your whim, without enthusiasm or interest. They learn to learn, and actually learn to think, which enables them to achieve more than dogs taught by the old traditional dog training

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Shaping versus Luring Behaviors

Confession: My dogs don’t know the common obedience cue, “Stand.” Once upon a time I taught all of my dogs to stand on cue, but since I stopped doing competition obedience I didn’t feel the need for it and just stopped teaching it. Recently, in doing Canine Freestyle, I discovered a need for it. And now, while working on conditioning my couch potato Aussie Frenzy, it becomes even more important. I dawdled with it from time to time over the

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