Five “Just One Thing” Things for Dog Training
Hiking with Miles in the rain. We worked on sitting while others passed us on the trail. That’s it.
In my past few posts, I’ve written about the process of doing “just one thing” to complete a big project. The project wasn’t a dog training project, it was refinishing an antique vanity.
I started doing “just one thing” every day, more or less, and I finally built up enough momentum to finish it.
I’ve been thinking about how this “just one thing” concept could work for dog training.
There’s a lot of “do more” and “work harder” in dog training. This isn’t unique to dog training, of course. But the imperative to work harder and do more can come at a cost, and it can cost us our joy.
The ebb and flow of shame can be a constant undercurrent when we’re caring for living beings. As a professional trainer, I often feel substantial pressure to achieve certain goals with my dogs or for them to behave in certain ways. I’ve talked about my goals for my dogs here before. My social media reminded me recently that Gus had earned his Novice Trick Dog title over a year ago. Instead of feeling joy, I felt a pang of guilt.
“How could we have gone a whole year without getting his Intermediate title?”
That thought stopped me in my tracks. It was one of those sneaky thoughts that didn’t really reflect my own values, and I had no idea where it came from. I have similar thoughts and guilt pangs more often than I’d like to admit. Whether it’s a missed walk, an extra hour of confinement, skipping a nail trim, missing a class, I feel it. I’m slowly learning to reframe and accept.
Because, here’s the thing. Setting achievable, relevant expectations for yourself, your dog, and your own life, is more important than the amount of work or effort you put into training. Doing what works best for you, your dog, your family, your community, and your own life is an amazing and loving way to care for your dog and for yourself.
When it comes to setting expectations for yourself and your dog, I invite you to aim lower.
Yes, really. Lower. At least, sometimes.
What’s the bare minimum you could accomplish with your dog’s training and still celebrate it as progress?
I know this sounds like some kind of blasphemy. This blog post is probably terrible marketing. I should be trying to convince you to train more, right?
But, there’s something easy and flowing in the bare minimum. There can be relief in letting expectations morph into a nebulous blob. And there’s a distinct joy in letting things be easy. It’s a joy I wish for anyone with a dog, with any goal.
When we can loosen our grip on our expectations, and start looking for things to celebrate, our expectations can become better aligned with what is possible.
So, the following “Just One Thing” things are designed to help you find that bare minimum in your training with your dog.
Just one behavior: Pick one behavior to work on. It can be a known behavior, or something new, whatever you like. Dog training sessions frequently involve a selection of different behaviors. But, let’s make it easy. Just one behavior. You can train it for a bit in a session or you can spread it out over a day.
Just one location: Work a behavior in one new location. And, let’s slice up our notion of “location” into itty bitty pieces. “I’m going to work on ‘down’ while we’re ‘at home’” is actually pretty huge. Our dogs are pretty specific when it comes to where their behavior works for them. Your dog may understand that ‘down’ works in the kitchen on the mat in front of the fridge, but do they also understand that ‘down’ works behind the sofa? Or in the guest bathroom? Try out one new location and see what happens.
Just one new reinforcer: I’m guilty of buying the same bricks of cheese over and over at the grocery store. I know how it will feel under the knife, how long it takes to cut up an entire brick into chihuahua-appropriate nibs. And while sameness and patterns are nice, auditioning one new reinforcer that your dog finds delicious can help training by increasing motivation. Just like us, dogs respond to novelty. “Oh, I haven’t had THIS before, yum!”
Just one distraction: Working behaviors with distractions is such an important piece of dog training. Pick one single distraction, as best you can. For example, while working on Tycho’s sit-stay behavior recently, I added the distraction of me bending down to fix my shoe. If he held the stay while I fixed my shoe, he got paid. We repeated the exercise ten times and then played frisbee.
Just one minute: Really. Grab your food reinforcers, set a timer, and train for just one minute. Depending on the behavior you’re working and the speed of your dog, you might be able to get quite a few repetitions in that one minute.
Not only are these little pieces small, but they also embody fundamental elements of good training. If you do just one thing, whether it’s one of these or something else, it counts as progress. And it’s worth celebrating.
XOXO,
Joan and all the dogs
