The Discerning Dog

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The Discerning Dog

Competition Obedience | Educational Content | Virtual Coaching

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(2)

15/03/2026

Just living the dream 🙌.

12/03/2026

This dog I didn’t plan for is slowly but surely carving out a big place in my life.

The man I (didn’t know I) need(ed).

REACHER
My big little piece of Patty. 🥹

⚔️:
Thanks for the phenomenal work, guys.

05/03/2026

Maybe you don’t notice the progress
Because you keep raising the bar.

🐾 Ember owned by

04/03/2026

S P O O K Y

Do retrieves haunt you too?

Explore the Retrieves Collection on Patreon and join me for a breakdown of the first session generalizing the hold to new objects! Link in bio.

03/03/2026

When someone feels the need to dissect your methods or minimize your results, it’s not about your training plan or progression. It’s about their own.

Discontent looks for a target.

If your process is thoughtful, ethical, and producing clarity in your dog, their criticism is just noise.

Sometimes comments and whispered criticisms are just a reflection of what that person isn’t ready to acknowledge themselves.

05/02/2026

In highlighting play last week, I discussed the “Pay to Play” game, and the power of treating play as a behavior for possessive dogs.

“Pay to Play” with food is excellent for young dogs (usually

03/02/2026

Sometimes alive with anxiety, but alive nonetheless. 😅

02/02/2026

A timely audio for unprecedented times.

(Speaking to unprecedented since 2010 local winter weather, of course 💁🏻‍♀️.)

30/01/2026

Many of our dogs are possessive 👹 - and while it’s a phenomenal quality in the work itself, it can make for difficulty in building cooperative play skills.

For these dogs, it can be helpful to treat play like a behavior (we can feed into their greed and show them that by interacting with us, they can get even more from us 😈).

We begin by marking and rewarding the dog orienting back towards us and ultimately build up to a fluid return and interaction/tug. Before long, a mutually enjoyable game of cooperative play can come to fruition.

With puppies or dogs with high food drive, we can mark and reward with food (this is also great for challenging marker clarity). For dogs that struggle to downgrade, we can go through the same process with two of the same toy.

Do you have a possessive dog? Give “pay to play” a shot! 🤝

26/01/2026

As we close out our January training collaboration, we’re focusing on something that often gets lost in “the work”: play.

Play isn’t a break in our obedience.
It’s part of it.

Not all play looks the same - and it shouldn’t.
Some dogs crave chase/catch.
Some value possession.
Some simply crave a bit of social interaction to decompress between repetitions.

And if we use play strategically, it can bring something powerful to our obedience and our relationships with our dogs.

So this week, let’s dive into it!

Work hard play harder and welcome to week four of the January Training Series.

25/01/2026

Step 1: Teach “Eyes on the Closed Hand”

Goal: Dog intentionally targets the handler’s closed hand with their eyes.

Present a closed hand at the dog’s nose level. The moment the dog looks at the hand → mark → open hand, deliver food.

Criteria: calm, sustained eye contact on the hand.

This establishes the presentation of the closed hand as a behavior, not just a lure or food source.

⸻

Step 2: Add Spatial Pressure

Goal: Dog learns that handler movement into space = yield.

Present the closed hand as before. Take a small step forward into the dog’s space. The instant the dog shifts weight back or takes a step back → mark → reward.

⸻

Step 3: Build Backward Steps

Goal: Dog confidently steps backward multiple times on handler movement.

Gradually increase the number of steps you take forward, and the number of steps the dog takes backward. Where possible, maintain the closed hand as the focus point. Incorporate the desired cue/marker to name the behavior.

⸻

Step 5: Convert Closed Hand → Toy

Goal: Same behavior, higher arousal.

Replace the presentation of the closed hand with a toy instead, gradually increasing the number of steps expected of the dog in higher arousal.

⸻

Step 6: Transfer to Heel Position

Goal: Dog steps backward out of heel on handler’s mark.

Start with the dog in basic position. Mark and present the closed hand along the luring line and slowly step backwards, encouraging the dog to step backwards just as in previous repetitions.

If the dog struggles, lower the closed hand so that the cue is on nose-level.

Gradually progress to utilizing the toy in the same manner.

23/01/2026

Anticipation of reward has an undeniable effect on preceding behavior.

If the release to reward lacks consideration of the dog’s tendencies within behavior, we can inadvertently reinforce the very motion we are fighting against.

Thoughtful reward placement flips the script and helps us combat common problems such as forging, crabbing, bumping, and lagging.

For the forging dog, we utilize reward strategies that incentivize the dog moving backwards or build anticipation of reward in the space behind them -

✅ Reward in position
✅ Spin to reward
✅ Drop back to reward
✅ Remote reward behind
✅ Throw behind

Does your dog forge in the heeling? Give one of these a try!

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http://patreon.com/u82038536, http://www.discerningdogtraining.com/

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