Taking Your Dog’s Training to the Next Level

You’ve taught your dog how to do behaviors in the house and it’s going great. But when you step outside, everything falls apart. What should you do? Firstly, you’re not alone. This is super common. Things in your home stay pretty constant and your dog has access to those things all the time. This means the “distractions” in the environment are old news. New, exciting distractions are very flashy and dogs want to pay close attention to them. When that’s happening, it’s harder to respond to your cues. Here are some things to try:

1. Practice your training strategically in areas where the distractions are low. From there, move to an area where there are slightly more distractions and so on. You’ll notice that it’s a bit harder than indoors, but much easier than what you’ve been trying before.

2. Allow your dog to investigate the area before asking for anything. Doing so makes the environment less motivating and results in you being more motivating. I generally recommend sticking to about a 10 foot area and just letting the dog sniff until they no longer feel like sniffing. At that point you’re ready to ask for something.

3. We teach behaviors starting with a food lure, then a hand signal and finally a verbal cue. In new environments you may need to either start from the beginning or you’ll want to reverse that order if your dog didn’t respond.

4. Let your dog burn off some steam before asking them to do something. This is very similar to #2. If your dog has been in the house all day and really itching to run, let them run around first. Giving this outlet will allow them to be more responsive.

5. Consider upping the value of the food you’re using. When indoors you can generally get your dog to respond for small, lower value food rewards. Outdoors we need to increase the value and possibly increase the size slightly.