Valentine’s Day is an interesting holiday that people tend to have very strong love or hate feelings about, and those feelings can change from year to year depending on the individual’s romantic life. Well, if you have a dog in your life, you will always have someone to be your valentine. Our dogs love us. Like, luuuuuuuuurve us, so let’s show them how much we love them!
So, how do we show our dogs we love them? Treats, toys, play, sniff breaks, and of course training! Training can and should be fun, both for us and our dogs. Chances are if our dogs are having fun, we’re having fun, too, but how do we make sure that our dogs have fun?
Think about training as taking your dog out on a date, Valentines Day or any day! When you take someone out on a date your goal is to be more interesting, engaging, and fun than anyone else in the environment, right? You don’t want your date to look across the room and see someone else that they might rather be on a date with. When we’re training, we don’t want our dogs to look (or sniff) around and fine someone or something that they’d rather be investigating or hanging our with, either.
So, how do you become a “good date” for your dog? It’s not actually that different than with people: for both dogs and humans, a good date is cheerful, friendly, says nice things to you and buys you dinner.
Be cheerful and friendly: If you go into a training session in a bad mood or already frustrated, you can bet your biscuits that your dog is picking up on your feels. On a date with someone grumpy? you’ll check out pretty quickly, and so will your dog. By keeping things upbeat and fun, your dog is much more likely to stay engaged with you. This is pretty easy to do just with your tone of voice. Dogs love, and I mean LOVE high pitched, squeaky, or otherwise cartoonish voices, and in my personal (and often very regretfully public) experience, they love being sung to, as well. When you’re communicating with your dog verbally, talk to him like you love him, sing his favorite song in a fun voice (Kit is a huge fan of a song that’s only lyric is “who’s a good dog?!?!” repeated over and over), and see what a difference in your dog’s level of interest in you.
Say nice things: Would you want to be the valentine of someone who was constantly telling you what you were doing wrong? Neither does your dog! If you focus on the (ahem) “areas of improvement” there isn’t much room for positive motivation It’s pretty much common sense that being constantly criticized or told “no” is frustrating, and frustration is where I see dogs begin to shut down, disengage, and look for something more interesting (and reinforcing!) to pay attention to.
On the flip side, if you encourage your dog with praise and affection for all the good choices she’s making, you’ll see her excited to keep going on that right track. Being told “yes!” is going to build excitement, engagement, and endurance during training, as well as being the very foundation of positive reinforcement training: the more you’re able to reinforce the good choices you pup makes the more often she’ll make those choices!
Buy dinner: Aside from the fact that you literally always pay for your dog’s meals, when training it really helps to use food (most of the time: there are always exceptions!) to reinforce the behaviors you want to see repeated. Food is known as a “primary reinforcer” which means that it’s something that dogs find naturally valuable, and that makes it a very potent tool for training. What kind of food? Well, would you rather be taken out on a date to a fast food chain or a 4-star restaurant? The better the food, the more memorable the experience, and the more engaged and motivated the date, err… dog. Kibble and carrots probably aren’t going to be as powerful a reward as cheese, pastrami, or bacon, but ask your dog what he likes! Bring a variety or treats with you to a training session and notice which snacks make your pup’s eyes light up and focus become laser-like.
In Summary: If you go into a training session with a treat pouch full of special goodies, a heart full of love & patience, and a willingness to get a bit silly with your dog, I can just about promise you that your pup will not only have a great time, but gladly go out with you again.
Happy Valentines Day, y’all.
❤