Drives ... and what to do with them - Dog Training in Milton Ontario

Most dogs have them, a few lack them, but you might as well take advantage of them.

We're not talking Sunday morning outtings in the car with the family, rather, the drives that motivates your dog to work.

Play drive, prey drive, pack drive, food drive etc. are all extremely useful tools to help you train your dog. Some dogs have higher, more intense drives than others, that can be, for the average owner, a bit difficult to control. Your dogs drives are what you can utilize to help them in their training.

If you have a dog that's "nuts for balls or toys", then you might want to think about utilizing that as a reward for a job well done, rather than a cookie or a pat. That being said, it is key first to work on gaining control of these drives before entering them into your training routine, especially for those dogs with intense toy/prey drives (see pictures in post for examples of intense toy drives).

Tug toys are an excellent tool for training dogs with prey/toy/play drives. First thing is first, if you are utilizing a toy as a reward, you need to first teach a "give" or an "out" so that you can maintain control during the reward and training.

The easiest way to teach an "out/give" is to trade up. As you say the command, trade the dog for something else that's really high value. If you work through this properly, you'll end up with a dog that enjoys giving you things, rather than thinks your taking the fun away.

Once you've got the "give" down pat, you can add in a tug as a reward for a job well done. Tugs are great because you maintain a hold on them, that way the dog never takes off to go play (ie. when using a ball or another such toss/fetch toy), rather he stays with you to play the game, offering you more control.

If you've got a highly food motivated dog, take advantage of that by utilizing treat rewards when teaching. In the beginning stages of training (while teaching), dogs should be rewarded fairly frequently. Once you see your dog start to understand what you are asking, you can start to remove the reward for every single instance of obedience and only reward the really good performances. Keep 'em guessing though. It's great to intermitently reward because it builds up the drives even more, and keeps the dog on his toes because he never knows when that reward is coming.

If you have one of those dogs that just enjoys being with you and having attention paid to him (pack drive), you can utilize this in training by rewarding with praise and affection. Not all dogs are motivated by treats and toys, and you need to learn what works for them in order to help the dog learn. 

So, experiment with your dog to find out what motivates him or her and take advantage of that while training.

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