Engagement and Motivation

Engagement in dog training is the ability to create a relationship with your dog where you are the reward. Engagement done well will have your dog insisting on continuing the activity with their owner. In other methods of training, there are some elements of this as well, but the engagement that I am talking about is much more. Engagement in dog training is more about play with their owner or handler to create that very strong bond and work ethic. As with anything, it can have it's pluses and minuses. I really enjoy this method, because I get to play with my dog and train. The thing that motivates me in this method, is seeing my dog have fun while we are doing it. Why do I also use other methods other than Engagement and Motivational methods? One reason is this is a bit slower process than some other methods in the shorter term.   Sometimes if you really need to stop your dog from jumping on your elderly relatives, while including them in your family activities, you might want to take a faster course of action.  Of course there are ways to control what you dog does by confining them more, but I like my dogs to have certain freedoms during the day, where this perhaps might not happen if I was only using this method. It takes longer not in time per day, but the progress to build to a goal in general will take more time. There are reasons to want to spend a longer period if time in training your dog. I will go over that at a later date.

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In the beginning, the daily time to train your dog or puppy by using engagement might be five minutes or even less. When you use this method, you want your dog wanting more at the end. A tired or bored dog does not have an intense drive for more. Also the environmental set up should not be very distracting to your dog in the beginning.

There are many ways to engage your dog. I am talking more about the motivational training methods more related to the following trainers:

• Mike Ellis​
• Denise Fenzi
• Ivan Balabanov

The above all compete in protection sports. I do believe this can also help dog owners create some enthusiasm for obedience work. There are also reasons why this is tricky to teach your average family pet dog owner:

1. Building engagement takes time. You really need enthusiasm and patience.​
2. The games can be very physical for the dog owner
3. The games must have rules, and you must have goals.
4. Dogs don't always want to end the game or may pester you at an inconvenient time. That has to have a plan to be dealt with.
5. Many of these games comes with a chance of teeth meeting flesh. Teaching your dog to target correctly is part of the work, especially when training with toys.
6. Bumps and bruises come along with play training, especially tug training.
7. Some toys need to be put away and kept separate frim anything that is allowed access to all day.
8. The handler has less control over responses than more traditional training. Knowing your dog much better and being able to anticipate their responses is very helpful.
9. Timing and handling are really important.
10. The progression of progress you want is in the paws of your dog, and how well the owner is able to work with their dog.

Again though, I feel like I have accomplished much important work by including this in my personal training plan with my dog, Shana. It has taken me years to feel like I have gotten good at this with my dog. There are no trainers that I know of around me who fully have a training concept of this (and are training others) that are available close enough for me to travel to. So I use the dvds for sale and any free instructional videos and articles available to me, as other people like me have had to.

Why, given the above list, do I find this method helpful?

1. While the dog is distracted by a fun game, it builds confidence and can reduce stress in environments ​that previously were perceived stressful to the dog.
2. Dogs are both mentally and physically challenged by the games.
3. I am physically and mentally challenged doing this.
4. I can be loose and have fun with my dog.
5. When you get going, you can extend your training sessions and get a lot done.
6. It is fun to start using this in ways where your dog can do helpful tasks with you. This personally makes some chores more fun for me.

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Engagement, real engagement as I see it, is not easy to do. The rewards of earning the attention and focus of your dog are well worth it, however. If you are interested, start simple with fetch play. Just make sure you keep your dog wanting more (do not tire them out), and save those balls as special for training only. Focus on the goal of getting your dog to return the ball. A long line is an useful tool for this. We have a blog about play fetch.