"Mise En Place" and Dog Training

In cooking, there’s a French phrase: mise en place. It means, “To put into place.” The phrase describes a specific practice in cooking, to prepare yourself, your supplies, and your space in advance. “Mise en place” includes memorizing recipes, arranging spaces, positioning all equipment and utensils nearby, measuring and preparing ingredients in advance, and cleaning up throughout the process of cooking. It prevents emergency trips to the pantry to hunt for spices, forgetting ingredients, and all manner of disasters that can occur while preparing food. It’s a vital practice in cooking, but as a concept, it’s useful for thinking about other areas of life—including dog training.

For example, let’s say your dog loves people and exuberantly greets guests at the door. But, he has occasionally dashed out the door into the yard, and it was a challenge to recall him back into the house. This is one reason why you’ve hired me. Of course, training-wise, we are working together on teaching your dog a solid “wait” at the door. However, we need to make a plan to manage the behavior while in training, a plan that will survive the challenges of real life. I offer a couple of options, and you choose to leash up your dog when the doorbell rings and you need to open the door for guests.

It sounds so simple and easy, right? “Put a leash on your dog when you have to answer the door.” But, it’s the dog version of, “Crack some eggs and make a soufflé.”  It’s not quite that simple or easy. And this is where the “mise en place” of dog training is relevant.

To leash up your dog by your door, the leash has to be accessible. Where will you hang the leash? We talk about where you will best remember where your leash is located in the commotion of answering the door, and decide to put the leash on the hallway table. We discuss getting a designated leash for that spot, so that the dog’s leash for walking could live elsewhere, and you won’t have to remember to put it back on the table. We discuss alleviating the stress of having to answer the door right away by putting a sign on the door that says, “Dog in training, I’ll be with you shortly!”

And, to reinforce a “wait” by the door when an unannounced guest arrives, your dog’s preferred reinforcement must be readily accessible. Would your dog prefer snacks or a toy in a situation with this level of distraction? Would it be helpful to have both available? Which snacks will you use and where will you put them? You decide to stash a bag of treats and a toy in the top of the coat closet. You want the toy for back up, because a toy could be thrown to lure the dog away from the door and buy you some time to allow guests to enter. Thinking through these kinds of details to help people and their dogs live harmoniously is truly one of my favorite things. 

Put everything in place, then manage and train.

But, applying mise en place to dog training is more than planning and training for specific behaviors or situations. It is an organizing practice that works from a big picture view as well. 

During my holiday break, I spent more time with my dog, Mulligan. I taught him to retrieve toys and place them in a basket, or “tidy up.” I was reminded of how much I enjoy his company. For 2020, my goal is to spend a little more time with my own dogs. Learning new things makes my dogs’ lives more interesting for them, and training gives me the opportunity to spend dedicated time with them. There have been days when I’ve come home and felt like I have nothing left to give to my own dogs. And, a little mise en place could go a long way for us.

I did some “big picture” mise en place for training my own dogs in 2020 that I’d like to share with you. I made a list of some behaviors I can work on with my own five dogs in the first part of the year. This will relieve me of the pressure of having to invent an activity when I’m tired. They’re prominently displayed on a chalkboard in my training room at home.

Some of the behaviors I have listed include: brushing teeth, take a bow, pivoting, retrieve, stand, stay, cross your paws, ring toss, and switch back.

I located all the props and equipment that I will need for training these specific behaviors, and put them in a basket on the table in the training room.

I also arranged my time and lined up some resources to motivate myself and keep myself accountable. I signed Paloma (pictured below) up for a class called “Opposing Notions,” where we train “opposites” of behaviors, such as jumping in and out of a box on cue. I signed Miles and myself up as a team in Rally Freestyle Elements, and I plan to teach him skills from that venue. Gus and I will continue working on our Rally Obedience game, and attend our weekly classes. And, I plan to do some of the exercises from Hannah Branigan’s new book, Awesome Obedience: A Positive Training Plan for Competition Success, with Thelma.

Paloma in class

Of course, to make this work, I need to mise en place for every day life to make the big picture stuff work, which means:

• Preparing Kongs and activities for our other dogs in advance (every Saturday), so they are comfortable relaxing elsewhere while I’m playing with one dog.

• Cooking and cutting up food reinforcers in advance (also on Saturdays), so I can grab a bag out of the fridge and go.

• Dedicating small chunks of time (15-30 minutes), and blocking them off in my schedule (this was the hardest thing ever!).

Perhaps the concept of mise en place will be helpful to you as you navigate training and activities with your own dogs. I plan to revisit this post later in the year and give the occasional update. Happy New Year!