I think my dog left his ears at home!

🤔 Have you ever wondered why your dog listens pretty well at home, but the moment you have them out in public, they act as though they can't hear a single thing that you're saying? 🤔

➡️ This is most often because home is a familiar environment with very limited reinforcers. If you're training with praise, or food, or a toy, you can very easily be the most interesting and the most reinforcing thing in the environment for your dog.

Once you get out in public, or on a walking trail, that changes quickly. There are all kinds of sights and smells and things to do. There could be a squirrel to chase, another dog to interact with, the scent of a bunny rabbit that your dog wants to track. The list goes on and on. ⬅️

🛑 The end result is that you are now competing with the environment for your dog's attention and oftentimes, the environment is WAY MORE reinforcing than we are and so we find ourselves repeating commands, getting frustrated, trying to bribe or negotiate with our dogs using treats etc. 🛑

🐾 Reinforcement, by definition, means that it will increase the likelihood of the behaviour occurring in the future. So, if our dogs are always being reinforced by the environment, it will drastically increase the likelihood of our dogs continuing to disregard us in favour of the environment. 🐾

💥Just like the environment positively reinforces our dogs, we can also use positive reinforcement while managing the environment to help set both ourselves and our dogs up for success. 💥

📨If this is something that you struggle with, please don't hesitate to contact us to book a private session. 📨