Another experience that we prepared for you and your dog is the Recall. Normally, recall is based almost entirely on reinforcement. You call the dog, the dog comes, and then you give the dog a treat, toy, or ball. This can work very well in simple situations. However, when the environment offers stronger reinforcement than
Once your dog understands the Stay and Wait exercise built on the basis of Conscious Relaxation, we can move into the heart of this work: Relaxation at Separation Anxiety. When I work with horse owners and dog owners alike, many people say that separation anxiety — not wanting to stay alone without the owner, without
In this Module, we are introducing Conscious Relaxation in the context of restriction, and we begin with the most basic form: restriction of movement. This is very important because in the next module, we will start to introduce Conscious Relaxation in the context of separation anxiety. For that work to become possible, the dog first
In this module, we are going to learn how to introduce two dogs to one another through Conscious Relaxation. Very often, when dogs meet, people expect excitement. They expect pulling, jumping, intense sniffing, rushing toward each other, or immediate interaction. Many people even interpret this excitement as happiness or friendliness. But in this work, we
Our next module is Come to Me and Walking on the Leash. These skills also emerge naturally from the state of relaxation your dog enters — and from the understanding that you are the provider of that relaxation. Many dogs, when they walk on the leash, see other dogs, people, movement, smells, sounds, and
Introduction to Module 2: Follow Me The second thing we are going to teach your puppy or dog is Follow Me. This is one of the most natural things you can teach, because it does not begin with control, pressure, treats, or excitement. It begins with relaxation and physical connection that all living beings seek
During the first Week of Optimal Performance Program you are going to teach your dog how to relax. You already know that the body of your dog seeks relaxation in the most natural and automatic way. It’s enough to give a body a moment of rest, and it will start to unwind. The problem with
DOs of Optimal Performance Program: Keep everything fun and light. Relaxation is the opposite of effort, seriousness and tension. When your trainings become heavy and too intellectual, your tensions make relaxation difficult for your dog. Follow instructions of the Program. The easiest way to be successful is to just follow the successful recipe. Allow yourself
Teaching Relaxation to your dog will be one of the easiest, and at the same time one of the trickiest tasks that you have ever faced in your entire life. What will make it easy is the simplicity of the procedure and the naturalness of the whole process. You will find the process pleasurable, fulfilling
Relaxation Sign is a natural response of the body to the process of relaxation, which has already happened within the body. We can say that a relaxation sign is a pathway for the tension to leave the body, after the release of the tension already happened within the body. For example, many times when people