My Dog Training Method
" The best food reward ever ??? The VOICE !!! "
So as you have read, I don’t use food as a reward when I work with dogs. Why? For these 3 main reasons:
- A dog trained with food only thinks about receiving his food at the expense of what we ask him to do. So, he doesn’t want to "Sit" to make his owner happy but just to receive his food.
- A dog used to receiving food when we give him an order (foot, sit, lay, stay) might send us to the moon the day we give him an order without his usual food reward which we left at home.
- A dog used to constantly getting food when he is good, may decide by himself that he has been left alone at home for 3 hours now, and he has been very good, so he deserves the lovely toast left on the table.
The voice is a tool we permanently have with us. "And what if we are dumb or voiceless?". Well we still have our whole body, our body gestures, our facial expressions to make the dog understand we are super proud of him and of what he just did, or not happy at all. By working with the voice, we also work on establishing special eye contact with the dog. Indeed, if when your dog looks at you, he receives all vocal congratulations possible, he will be much more pleased to see you happy than receiving food.
"95% vocal congratulations, 4% orders, 1% prohibition"
It is on the basis of the eye contact and of the voice that I educate the dogs who are with me for boarding with training. I also teach this method to dog owners who work with me and who want to learn how to use different vocal tones to make the dog understand what we expect.
