Engagement

Engagement is one of the most powerful and fundamental aspects of training. We feel without engagement, you have nothing and if you have engagement, you have everything. Starting out, the dog needs to learn great things happen when they are with us. They need to learn great things happen when they are engaged with us. In return, we also need to learn that we need to be the greatest thing to our dog. This can be done with food or play and high praise. The engagement needs to be a two way street. This can be done with food, a ball, or a tug. Food is a powerful tool in training just as a ball or tug can be. With a ball, tug, or toy, the dog must be willing to play and engage with us in the play. Once we establish engagement in a control environment, we can then move into the world with distractions. We then can slowly increase the amount of distractions and build from it.