Life Zen Class Handout

• Positive training starts with your own positive attitude about your dog and your own skills, ability and willingness to learn how to communicate with him.
• Believe in your dog.  Envision your dog performing the final finished behaviors.
• Set clear, realistic expectations - This is critical.
• Empower your dog by allowing your dog to make decisions.  Trade your dog what he wants for what you want in every way, every day.
• Limit the amount of time your dog spends participating in social interactions without supervision, allowing access to only positive and safe environments.
• Play with your dog!  Dogs flourish when they are closely connected and share special time with their trainer.  Take the time to get to know your dog as an individual and recognize his unique strengths and challenges.
• Use shaping exercises to encourage your dog to try new things and use your skills of observations to catch your dog doing things right and reinforce those things in the moment!
• Consider threshold.  Dogs learn best when relaxed.  Find every opportunity to reward a relaxed state of being (in a matter or fact way) so that your dog learns that relaxed feels even better than the adrenaline rush of being over threshold.
• Be Flexible.  Effective trainers change and adapt training and boundaries to meet the individual dogs needs.
• Create opportunities for your dog to practice doing things correctly by setting up clear boundaries and rituals to help him learn through repetition.
• Create balance in your dogs life through good management, short, specific, behavior focused training sessions, exercise and environmental enrichment.
• Catch your dog doing what you like and distract him when he is doing something you wish he wouldn't.  Manage his environment when you cannot supervise.
• Remember that your dog cannot explain himself.  Take time to cuddle/groom and observe him every day.  These will help you to understand him a, recognize when he is ill or out of sorts and help him bond closely with you.
• Enforce some alone time for your dog every day.  Vary the time (amount time of day), location (different rooms, inside, outside, etc) and management tools (crate, tether, car, etc).
• Be consistent.  This builds your dogs faith in you and helps him feel safe in the world.
• Allow your dog to experience natural consequences when it is safe, (set up safe and gentle ones when possible).  Your dog needs to learn how the world works.
• Your dogs fear, no matter how small or large, is best acknowledged with understanding and support.  You can do much to help him become more confident if you are relaxed yourself and when your dog reacts, reinforce the smallest signs of courage.

Sheila Allen

3/10/11