Less is more in dog training. Dogs use very little sound to communicate with each other. (Photo: Person holding a finger to their lips)
When working with dogs, less is more. What does that mean? What it means is that a lot of the time humans repeat commands over and over again, often before even teaching their dog what those words mean.
A lot of new puppy parents will follow their puppy around shouting “leave it” when the puppy picks up a shoe or a child’s toy, but the puppy has no idea of what “leave it” means.
One of the kindest things you can do for your new puppy or your current dog is to ask yourself if they in fact know the commands you are asking of them. If they don’t, now you have the opportunity to teach them.
Instead of repeating commands, check in with yourself and ask: does my dog know this command? (Photo: Duck Toller wearing glasses with his head on a dog magazine)
Once your dog knows a command (we call this proofing a command,) you can begin to hold them accountable. This means that if your dog knows “sit,” and you ask her to sit, say in your kitchen, and she ignores you, you can now provide her with more information without saying the command again.
You may need to apply spatial pressure, take a step toward her. You may need to give her some eye contact. That is psychological pressure. Think of how your fourth grade teacher used eye contact to get you to stop talking. It’s not mean, it’s providing more information because you didn’t do what she asked the first time.
The beauty of spatial pressure and eye contact are that they can be applied in complete silence — less is more.
Training in silence can be very peaceful (Photo: person kneeling in front of a dog who is sitting)
The other thing you’re doing when you’re using these two types of pressure is you’re using your own energy, your own self, as a tool. Since dogs only listen to other animals who have calm and confident energy, be sure that that is the energy you are projecting when working with your dog. If you’re frustrated, unsure, tense, or angry take a break and try again later when you’ve calmed down.
Spatial pressure and psychological pressure are very natural to dogs because dogs use this language themselves. Have you ever watched a dog claim another dog’s space or toy? They don’t talk. They move in and claim the space they want. Dogs also use a lot of eye contact to communicate with one another. They even have appeasement signals where they purposefully don’t make eye contact with another dog to show that they mean no harm.
We can all learn a lot about how to communicate with dogs from watching dogs interact with one another.
If you’re ever at a loss for how to get your dog to understand you, take some time to learn from the very best teachers: dogs (Photo: Siberian Husky playing with a Labrador Retriever puppy in the snow)
Dogs use way less sound than we do. Because humans talk so much to one another (and to our pets,) dogs sometimes learn to tune us out.
Want to try a challenge? Try one day where you only speak to your dog if you need to communicate a command that you are certain that he/she knows. If they ignore the command, don’t repeat yourself out loud. Try communicating using spatial pressure or psychological pressure. Let us know how it goes in the comments below.
If you aren’t sure how to use spatial pressure and eye contact correctly, schedule a free call with us now. You can learn how to do this during in-home sessions with us.
We look forward to learning more about you and your dog (Photo: woman grinning at her cellphone)
Have a great weekend, Dog Leaders!
Alyssa
Photos by: Kristina Flour @tinaflour (Person holding a finger to their lips,) Jamie Street
@jamie452 (Duck Toller wearing glasses with his head on a dog magazine,) Pinto Art @pintoart (person kneeling in front of a dog who is sitting) Karl Anderson @karlkiwi90 (Siberian Husky playing with a Labrador Retriever puppy in the snow,) Ghen Mar Cuaño @ghenmar (woman grinning at her cellphone)