It’s no secret that when good behavior is rewarded, it’s more likely to be repeated. But did you know that you don’t have to wait until you’ve asked for a behavior to reward it? Catch your pup in the act of doing something good or something you like, and reward it. Unfortunately, though, most of the time, good behavior goes unnoticed as we’re more inclined to focus on behavior we don’t want. Changing how we think about, observe and address behavior is hard, but here’s a simple way to start approaching it a bit differently.
Oftentimes, the organic training that happens in our day-to-day lives with our pup, outside of structured training sessions, isn’t given enough credit. Long gone are the days of making our pups work for every ounce of reward and reinforcement. Reward-based dog training thrives when we observe and reward behaviors our pups offer on their own. For example, have you ever glanced over to observe your pup laying down quietly even though you haven’t given a cue to lay down? If the answer is yes, that’s the perfect time to capture that good behavior and reward by quietly dropping a treat on the bed. By rewarding the good behavior we observe, even without asking for it, the stronger we are making that behavior and increasing the likelihood it will continue.
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Have a new puppy or a newly adopted pup? New arrivals provide great opportunities to start observing the good behavior your pup displays, that’s often overlooked, and rewarding it. In time, your pup will start offering that behavior even more, and you’ve never even really carved out ‘training’ time to get it. Not only is this helpful in capturing good behavior in dogs, but it helps to build our own observational skills, and keeps us engaged in what our pups are doing.
Want to increase the likelihood your pup will offer up some good behavior on their own? Try stashing some treat stations around the house (out of reach, of course) to make it easier to reward when you catch them doing something good. These treat stations are also a great visual cue to remind you to try to capture more good behavior throughout the day.
Want to capitalize on offered behavior? Portion out a set number of treats each day with the goal of observing and quietly capturing that number of behaviors from your pup. Not only will this help strengthen your pup’s behavior but will increase your puppy behavior observation skills as well!
These captured behaviors can be anything that you’d like your pup to offer more of, like:
Sitting while preparing meals
Laying down quietly
Quietly playing with toys instead of chewing on a shoe
Observe it, Like it, Reward it!
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