Engagement

It’s really important to understand that a leadership relationship is the key to lasting results with your dog.  We want our dog receptive to our directions and guidance, but first we need to build trust and confidence. At Calm on Command K9 that begins with engagement, and engagement begins with our dog wanting something from us.

Engagement, engagement, engagement! It's easy enough to say, but how do we get it?  First and foremost, our dog must work for all their meals. In the beginning of the process, they can only eat directly from our hand.

However, the food reward is not enough.  Some dogs aren't even very food motivated. Others are so anxious that they won't take food at all.  In these cases patience is crucial.  In severe anxiety cases it can take days or even a couple weeks to build up food drive.

Even when we have food drive, we can't show up like a wet rag and expect our dog to be eager to perform.  It's not enough to ask for a behavior from our dog and then hand them a piece of food.  We have to turn the food reward into a reward event until the value of the event overshadows the value of the food.

The goal is to enhance our relationship while teaching our dog everything they need to know to have a happy connected life in our household.

Before you can teach anyone anything you need their focus.  In the beginning we avoid conflict and create this engagement while charging verbal markers that establish clear concise communication. Once we have engagement and focus we use the verbal marker communication in relationship building games to teach new behaviors and the meaning of all the basic verbal commands.

To see how we do this first hand, follow us on IG stories or check out our engagement video on IGTV or our instructional playlist on YouTube.