Positive Reinforcement dog training methods

There are so many ways to train a dog - you'll often use many positive reinforcement methods without even realising! Dogs are always learning, even outside of the training session, and this can help us understand why they behave the way they do. Here's three methods you can use to train your dog.

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The most common way to train a dog is with luring; this is usually where you'll begin your training journey.

Luring: Using a reward to direct the dog into a behaviour - e.g. when you hold a treat up to teach a dog to sit, this is luring. Another example is teaching a heel or loose lead, and having a treat out for your dog to follow.

A dog is lured by a treat to walk by the handler's side.

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Another really common method is Premack's principle, although you probably don't realise you're using it!

A dog sits and waits before being let off-lead

Premack's principle: Reinforcing a behaviour by using a more desirable one, or asking for a less desirable behaviour to gain access to desirable result. E.g. Asking for a sit and wait at the door before going on a walk, or asking for a 'leave it' when placing food down.

This is a massively useful behaviour that people simulataneously underutilise, but still take advantage of without realising! When I hear the ways people train their dogs to wait for nice things, like a treat or garden access, it's usually using this method.. however, it can go so much further than this! One of the biggest queries we get is help with loose-lead walking, and when asked about daily walks, a lot of the time we hear "my dog drags me to the park (or another favourite place), and then I unclip them and they run round for an hour". In terms of your dog's learning, their behaviour (pulling on the lead), has led to a positive result (off-lead running for an hour). When a behaviour is reinforced, it's more likely to happy!

To change this with Premack's, or to get off to a good start with this method, we would ask our dog for a desirable behaviour first, and then they would get unclipped. For example, you may ask for a loose-lead or heel (depending on the distance), to the field or park, and the result is they get off-lead time. If they keep pulling, you turn back and reset, so they learn that they lose distance when they try to rehearse undesirable behaviour.

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Shaping - one of our personal favourites! Rewarding incremental progressions towards a final behaviour. A classic one for this is shaping a hold. Although some breeds were bred to retrieve, a 'hold' is often shaped so they only let go when the item will be released straight to the handler's hand.

A black labrador holds a gundog dummy.

This can be a really fun method to utilise, and can be used to train almost anything. With this method, you reward very small (sometimes micro!) movements that progress towards a final behaviour. For a hold, you would start by rewarding any interaction with an item - a look, a nose bump, walking towards it. As the dog continues to interact, you increase your criteria a little, so if they've nose bumped a few times, we may withhold their mark and reward until they open their mouth around it. Once they're consistently doing that, we may increase our criteria again and only mark and reward when the item was lifted off the ground (even for a second!). Eventually, you can build up to your dog holding the item for a prolonged period, then building this into a retrieve (another method, called back-chaining!)

You can get really creative with shaping, so if you're looking for some fun new training to enjoy, why not think of a fun trick or behaviour you'd like your dog to do! Then break it down into all the steps it takes to get there, and see if you can reward your dog for each step.

Happy training!