There are times when I am standing at my kitchen sink that Dawson, my maltipoo puppy, stops his play to come beside me and lay down with completely relaxed body muscles. I keep some treats in my cabinet for just those moments, for, when he does, I say ‘good’ in a slow and drawn out voice, reach down and drop a treat right at his nose. This may cause him to look up temporarily. I ignore that. If he drops his head down again, I drop another treat at his nose.
This is called teaching by ‘capturing behavior’ in dog training. Capturing as a form of training is simply that, it is the process of seeing a behavior, marking it (with a word or a click), and then giving reinforcement. Kathy Sdao, a well-known trainer who I look up to, coined the acronym SMART for See, Mark, and Reinforce Training. [Read more…] about Using Capturing To Teach Behaviors