Sounds like "Nothing in Life is Free." I have friends who train their dogs like this. It is positive, you just make your dog work for everything. I have kind of been doing this with the IG puppy I have here. I make her sit and am working on her stay command before giving her food. So far, she has a three second stay, max. And I don't free feed. I feed 2x a day with treats throughout the day.
I TRY to make all my dogs do something for me before giving them a treat. I even intermittently treat for going outside, and they have little tricks I usually ask them to do. But I also slip up fairly often and hand them a treat without asking for anything.
Agility is purely working for food. All my dogs have been trained exclusively with food in agility. With the IG puppy, I am also going to experiment with a laser pointer because she LOVES chasing it and will follow it over the baby gates in the house. She starts her class next week, I can't wait. Lizzy is going to be so darn jealous!
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Kristan
Lizzy's mom |