Howdy Friends, It’s Al the Dog Trainer, and welcome to Al’s Dog Training Tips. Today’s topic is “What Can You Do When Your Motivation Is High?”
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that people are more motivated at the start of a new year and that motivation will decrease. Right now, as motivation is particularly high, I’ve got some steps of some things that, maybe, can help you enjoy your dog a little bit more.
1- Make it obvious
One thing I really want to emphasize in the next few months is that just forming a daily personal dog training habit is really the key to being successful with a lot of dogs. So the first little tip that I have for all of us is to make it really obvious that you should train.
A lot of times, for instance, I don’t want my office to be too cluttered when it’s time for me to actually record anything that I’m doing. The reason for that is if I make it too cluttered, it’s really easy for me to get distracted. However, if I keep my desk really organized, I keep my iPad out, keep my microphone out. Then those are signals to me that I should “Hey, record some content.” Well, the same goes for dog training.
If you’re trying to be a better owner and trying to help your dog learn some things, make sure that your dog training equipment is really easy to find. For example, you should put your treat pouch over the top of your crate and you should have your leash there. If you have those things there, then it’s a signal to you that “hey maybe I should train my dog.”
2- Make it attractive
Step number two in this process is, I really want you to make it attractive for you to train. You should do something enjoyable with your dog, or at least part of your training should be enjoyable. I understand that we’re all going to struggle with different things. Maybe your dog isn’t coming when called, maybe your dog is acting aggressively on walks or is giving you a hard time by jumping on your company. When you do go and train, I’d advise you to maybe start and end your training session with something that you enjoy them doing. For example, doing some tricks, or maybe getting them to do a figure eight through your legs, or balance the treat on their nose, or any other trick. Just make sure that you do something fun as part of your training session. That way, your dog enjoys it and you enjoy it too.
3-Make it easy
Make it really easy for yourself. What I’m saying by that is maybe just train for two minutes twice a day for the rest of this week. If you can do that, just train for a couple of minutes, do anything for just two or three minutes, even if it’s just to get them to stay or get them to actually come to you. As you begin to standardize that, doing that on a daily basis, you’re going to see that you and your dog are going to get much better.
4-Make it Satisfying
The last thing that you’re going to do as part of this process is, I want you to make it satisfying for yourself. So, make it satisfying at the end of your training session, whether that means that you do something really fun with your dog that you enjoy, or maybe you reward yourself with a cup of coffee, or you go eat a piece of chocolate or something.
If you do these things, make it really obvious that you should train, do something fun in the training session, keep the training session pretty short and then you reward yourself for actually doing the training session, the likelihood that you’re going to make that into a habit and also train your dog in the process is much much higher than if you’re just going to depend on the motivation to actually get it done.
I do want to remind everybody about my tip line. That number is 832-734-5189. That number is for anybody anywhere in the world to text me and send me your dog training questions. And then I do my best to get back to you as quickly as I can and give you some relevant answers.
Happy training and have a great day!
