Scentventure Compass Point: Partnership
Calm walks start at home and if you can prevent reactions in the house, you will start your walks more calmly. This tool interrupts barking at home.
Rather than react to a trigger in the house or at the window, train your dog to follow you to a designated place and then reward them once you’re there!
Steve Mann from IMDT uses the cue ‘To the fridge!’, but you can replace ‘fridge’ with wherever you want your dog to go. Or you can just say ‘To the Treats!’ One of my clients chose ‘To the Bat Cave!’ which is pretty cool if they do actually have a Bat Cave at home.
Keep your training sessions short and don’t use it in a real life scenario until your dog stops what they are doing and follows you every single time when you’re practicing.
If, for example, your dog barks at the window, don’t try it in that area until you’ve practiced it a lot in low-distraction areas first.
Take your time building up your training firstly without distractions then within the problem areas.
- Practice first to build up an association
- Then practice from different rooms of your house and at different times of the day
- Then practice in the room where your dog would normally react
- Then you’re ready to use it with real life triggers and distractions
​​Method
- Choose the place you would like your dog to go to when the unwanted behaviour occurs. E.g. if your dog barks at the front window, choose an area at the back of the house furthest from the window. If your dog reacts in the garden, choose an area indoors. Having one particular bed or rug that you always go to works well.
- Prepare a tub of high-value rewards and leave them in the designated area for easy access.
- Sit down on the sofa for a couple of minutes and relax.
- Then suddenly jump up and with your best superhero impression, hand in the air pointing, and shout in a happy excited voice, ‘To the treats/bed/Bat Cave!’ and run to that place. Your dog will think you’ve gone mad but they’ll wonder what the excitement is about and follow you.
- When you get to the designated place, scatter a handful of treats for your dog to find. If they prefer lickimats, have one pre-prepared and make your designated area the kitchen.
- Then just stop and go back to the sofa and relax.
- Repeat, repeat, repeat.
- Do it from different rooms, at different times of the day.
- Once it becomes a reflex response, i.e. they can’t help but stop whatever they’re doing and follow you each and every time, start to practice closer and closer to the area of the house where the problem behaviour tends to occur.
- Make sure you’ve practiced enough before you need to test it out in real life.
Top tip! Don’t wait for your dog to react before saying ‘To the Treats!’. For ultimate effect, pre-empt their outburst before it happens.