TACTILE REWARDS

Another fun part about training dogs is knowing that they all have different personalities and certain attitudes. Many of you are going to begin training a dog that is either very high strung or very out of control. What I have found out is that with high strung dogs, there are many things that people do unknowingly that can excite the animal and get the animal more out of control than he already is. One of these things is using a treat. This can actually excite the animal even more than he is already. This can pose a probelm if you are trying to teach your dog some of most basic behaviors where you need to have control such as the SIT and STAY.

This is why if you are teaching a high strung or out of control dog using a treat as a reward can make the training a little more difficult. It makes sense that if you have a high strung dog and a treat is introduced, you are going to get the dog even more excited than he already is. Ddo you want to excite him or calm him down?

So instead of using a treat I would recommend a tactile reward, which is petting the dog. I am sure your dog has a favorite area to be petted. Use this tactile reward in place of treats until your dog calms down enough to where you can use treats.

Using tactile rewards are great because it is very reinforcing to most dogs, and it also has a calming a relaxing effect. And that is really your main goal early on in training high strung or out of control dogs.