The Power of Positive Reinforcements

The Power of
POSITIVE Reinforcements By Jean Cote
The Power Of
POSITIVE
REINFORCEMENTS
The Key To
Unleashing
Your Dog’s
True Potential
1 JEAN COTE Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Visit www.dogtrickacademy.com for more amazing dog-training information, videos and training guides.
The Power of
POSITIVE Reinforcements
06
contents
19 34
13 03 A Note From Jean
06 Hollywood’s Little Secret
10
10 Canine Freestyle Inspiration
13 A Dog Is Truly Man’s
(Or Woman’s) Best Friend
16 Search & Rescue and
Law Enforcement Dogs
19 It’s Not Just For Dogs!
23 Your Dog’s Deepest Desire
26 Coming When Called
50
Walking on a Loose Leash 34
Avoiding Food Possessiveness 39
I Love Getting Groomed! 43
Sit, Lie Down and Stand On Command 50
Spin, Roll Over and Figure Eight 58
More FREE Stuff On The Way! 66
16
A Note From Jean
The Power of
A Note from Jean

Dear Dog Owner and Friend,
I would like to personally thank you for downloading my eBook. I can remember a not-so-distant past
when I was in the same shoes as you are, trying to make sense of all the different training philosophies on
the Internet.
No matter where I turned, or whose

work I studied, there was always a
conflict in the different approaches
to training a dog. Some experts were
strong advocates of being the “pack
leader,” others believed in “correc-
tions,” and some even in “bribery.”
It was hard to know which training
method was the best, and which
one I should train my dog with.
In the beginning, I trained the way

that the experts told me to. They all
seemed to have such well-behaved
dogs, so I listened and did as they
said because I wanted to have the
same results.
But it didn’t take too long before I

found myself “correcting” my dog with pops on the leash (pulling sharply on the leash, which jolts the dog’s
neck) anytime my dog broke a stay position or pulled on the leash. Then, to make matters worse, I had
adopted the belief that my dog was trying to dominate me by jumping up or walking through the doorway
before I did.
Long story short, the end result was a very obedient dog. But the obedience came at the cost of having a
dog who was living in constant fear: my dog didn’t want to get “corrected” or be “dominated.”
Then, I asked myself this very fundamental question: “If I were a dog … how would I like to be trained?”
My answer was a painful pill to swallow, which was that I wouldn’t want to be trained the way that I had
Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

4 Visit www.dogtrickacademy.com for more amazing dog-training information, videos and training guides.
The Power of
been training my dog. So I knew that I had to make a change—and started reading dog training books and
attending seminars. What I discovered changed my life: my dog stopped living in fear and I was finally able
to communicate with my dog without the use of force or corrections.
What really got me thinking outside the box was reading about animal trainers that were training their
dogs by using only positive reinforcements. And I mean they were the best of the best, world agility cham-
pions and movie-set dog trainers.
This was a massive eye-opener for me because I had always been taught
to punish my dog whenever she “did something wrong.” But positive
reinforcement training is the complete opposite! I learned that, instead,
I needed to reward the good behaviors and choices. So I tried it—and it
worked!
I fell in love with this method of training. After a few weeks of training
with positive reinforcements, I noticed a difference in my dog’s behav-
ior and how she interacted with me. Her tail would start wagging and
I could tell that she was having so much fun with this type of training.
Since then, my focus has been to use this new way of training to strategi-
cally teach my dog to do all sorts of neat tricks. She now can clean up her
toys, fetch, play chess, jump over objects, and much more!
Then I started training and competing in dog agility, and we were very
successful. We’ve even won several 1st place finishes.
So my goal with this eBook is to invite you to have the same experience and transformation with your dog. I’ve
written this eBook to be very easy to follow and understand. Please give it a try with your dog and practice the
exercises given. They will work with dogs of any breed, size or temperament.
If you have any questions, concerns, or need clarification on anything that is in this eBook, you can find me
on the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion forum.
Best wishes,

Jean Cote

Hollywood’s Little Secret
The Power of
Hollywood’s Little Secret

The first movie I watched that had a dog as a main character was
the movie Bingo. Even to this day, I still remember the storyline: the
countless hurdles that Bingo had to overcome, and the bond that was
created between Bingo and Chuckie (the two main characters).
If you’ve never watched the movie, the storyline goes like this: Bingo
is kicked out of the circus for being afraid of jumping through a fire-
lit hoop. A young boy named Chuckie finds him and takes care of
him. But there is one problem: Chuckie’s family is moving 1,000 miles
across the country and his parents won’t allow Bingo to come with
them.
Chuckie tries everything to make his parents understand how im-

portant Bingo is to him. He’s the only friend that he truly has. But it
all falls on deaf ears and Bingo is left alone once again. But this time,
Bingo is determined to be reunited with his best friend Chuckie, and “The real challenge was when
so the journey begins! we (my family and I) brought
home a crazy, destructive, fear-
ful and energetic husky puppy
In the movie, Bingo runs, gets kidnapped, rides on the roofs of cars, “Laika” …which put my mind
and does whatever it takes to get back to his friend Chuckie. to work. Through the internet I
learned (and I’m still learning)
how to use positive reinforce-
ments to communicate and
train Laika.
The best part is it’s ALWAYS

fun, because you’re creating
a love bond with your dog. I
am enjoying EVERY training
session since I know positive
reinforcement training. Laika
is now a super intelligent dog
and every day makes me proud
and shows me that we’re on the
right together.”
- Tâmara & Laika

The Power of
I never realized it at the time, but this movie had a big influence on me. When I reflect back on it, I can see
that that was the moment I decided I wanted a dog, and that I wanted to be best friends with my dog. I was
also amazed at how Bingo was able to do those cool tricks in the movie.
Bingo can be seen doing over 130 different behaviors in the movie. He skateboards, plays video games,
makes phone calls, taps out Morse code, plays chess, catches fish, gives high fives and—my personal fa-
vorite—he even does Chuckie’s math homework!
What an incredible dog! But surely this dog is

“special” and must be “one in a million”—right?
But, as I later discovered, the dog who played
Bingo was actually found in a dog pound in Cali-
fornia. And if someone hadn’t found him there,
taken care of him and trained him properly, then
he would never have made it onto the movie set.
So, how did they train Bingo to do all of those

fancy tricks and behaviors? I can’t be a hundred
percent sure because I wasn’t there, but the way
that I’ve been able to reproduce the same tricks
shown in the movie was by using positive rein-
forcement training.
The trick that I loved the most in the movie was

“Playing Chess.” I made a promise to myself that I would find a way to train my dog to play chess, whatever
it took. I achieved this several years later with my dog, Onyx.
But it wasn’t easy! I had to invest hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on dog-training classes, books and
seminars. Most dog-training schools that I turned to were only designed to make the dog obedient, with-
out ever focusing on the cool tasks that I wanted to train my dog in, like playing chess.
And I didn’t quite agree with their training philosophy either. The way that they achieved an obedient dog
was by correcting and dominating the dog. They had silly rules like walking ahead of your dog through a
doorway, and putting the dog onto his back.
This training method and philosophy didn’t produce the result that I wanted. I wanted to become best
friends with my dog, and train my dog to do really cool tricks that I saw in the movies.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I discovered positive reinforcement training. It seemed strange at first
because it is the complete opposite of what everyone else was teaching. The fundamental difference is that

The Power of
the dog is rewarded for good behaviors and choices … instead of being
punished for the bad ones.
With my first dog, Tobbie, I was naïve and followed the traditional train-
ing as previously explained. But my dog was in a constant state of fear
(due to being constantly corrected). He wouldn’t fetch a ball if his life
depended on it, and we never even went for a walk because he would
bark at everything he saw.
Although I loved Tobbie, we were far from being best friends and I was
never able to teach him any cool tricks. So our relationship never grew
to the level that I wanted to, and the day I moved out of my home, I left
Tobbie in the good care of my sister.
Sadly, I didn’t discover positive reinforcement training until later on in

life when I had my second dog, Onyx. The difference was night and day. I
trained Onyx to do countless tricks, including all those I had seen in the
movies. And to this day we still enjoy training together!
“Positive reinforcement has really
changed the way I think about
So, in this book, I’m going to spill the beans on positive reinforcement dogs, and dog training. I used to
training and get you started on the right path—and also the path that be a Cesar Millan fan, but once I
turned over to positive reinforce-
will enable you to train your dog to do all those cool tricks you see in ment training, I never looked
movies. back.
My dog, Shivon is my best friend.

Are you up for the challenge? It won’t be easy in the beginning and it will I can’t imagine my life without
take effort and dedication. But I can promise you one thing: it will get her. We have a strong bond, which
much easier the more you practice. Until one day, you won’t even have was formed thanks to positive
reinforcements, love and devotion.
to think about it. You just can’t get that using cor-
rections, alpha rolls, choke collars,
This is kind of like how you started driving. At first, it was very difficult etc. With the power of positive
reinforcement training, I was able
and you had to focus on the road, the steering wheel, the pedals and
to teach Shivon obedience (such
mirrors. Now you can do it effortlessly. The same thing will happen with as stay, and loose-leash walking),
positive reinforcement training if you practice it enough times. but I was also able to teach her
amazing dog tricks, like painting,
playing the piano, and carrying
Are you excited yet? If you find yourself challenged or things are not my purse. Positive reinforcement
working, you can always find help at the www.dogtrickacademy.com dis- training changed my life forever.
cussion forum. There are thousands of other dog owners on there who It’s amazing what praise, treats and
a little tool called a clicker can do.”
train their dogs using positive reinforcement training.
- Maya & Shivon

Canine Freestyle Inspiration
The Power of
Canine Freestyle
Inspiration
Isn’t YouTube a wonderful thing? A few
years ago, I was browsing the Internet
one night and stumbled upon this You-
Tube video of a Canine Freestyle per-
formance on Britain’s Got Talent.
If you don’t know or have never heard

of Britain’s Got Talent, it’s a TV show in
Britain where talented people from all
walks of life compete against each oth-
er. They have singers, dancers, acrobats,
magicians—and now even dogs!
In this particular video, the Canine

Freestyle performance was by Kate and
her dog, Gin. They completed dozens
of jaw-dropping tricks. Everyone in the
audience was completely amazed and
the judges couldn’t believe that a dog
could do that.

The Power of
Personally, I was totally impressed with the tricks and handling displayed by Kate and Gin—so much so
that I began to train my dogs to do the same tricks as in their performance. I trained my dog to stand on
her hind legs and stand tall like a human. It was really fun!
But I think that when most people watch this video, they think to themselves, “This dog is great, but there’s
no way that my dog could do that.”
And that’s totally untrue. In fact, Kate struggled with training her dog in the beginning. She was asked to
leave every dog-training club that she joined because her dog was so badly behaved. They even told her
that she was never going to be able to train her dog!
But what spirit Kate has! She was determined and did not give up. She decided to work hard at training
Gin—and as a result, millions of people can now see her performance on YouTube and be inspired by it.
This story is so inspirational! If Kate could learn how to train her dog, even after being told by the “experts”
that she was a lost cause, then surely you can, too!
And even if you don’t know how to train your dog yet … that’s okay! Everything begins with a thought, a
desire and a vision. If your outcome is to train your dog to do really cool tricks, then there’s a way to train
your dog to do them.
It’s kind of funny: a while back someone had asked me on the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion fo-
rum how they could train their dog to jump rope. With my limited imagination, I told them that it was
impossible because dogs weren’t human. A few days later, another member posted a video of their dog
jumping rope. My belief that it was impossible had clouded my perception of what was actually possible.
I now believe that you can train a dog to do anything you want. So don’t believe it when someone tells you
that you can’t train your dog—because you can!

The Power of
A Dog Is Truly Man’s (Or

Woman’s) Best Friend

The Power of
A Dog Is Truly Man’s

(Or Woman’s) Best Friend
Dogs are such an incredible species! Some dogs spend their entire lives helping their human counterparts,
with many dogs literally being “man’s best friend” to people with disabilities, including the blind and hard
of hearing.
The way that these dogs are trained is very interesting. Each dog is uniquely trained to help the individual
they will be working with. For example, a dog who is going to assist a person in a wheelchair is trained to
pick up objects from the floor, whereas a dog who will be assisting a blind owner might be trained to avoid
obstacles.
The skills taught are always dependent on the particular disability the dog will be helping with. It can be a
variety of tasks, including opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, and even helping with the
laundry.

The Power of
These dogs are trained by professionals. The trainers begin by looking

at puppies and dogs who have excellent temperaments around strangers
and children. Next, they evaluate how the dog reacts in various situa-
tions, including highly stressful ones. These tests are to determine the
dog’s natural response, so as to make sure that the dog will be a good fit
for the disabled person.
Now, this does not mean that the dogs who do not pass the tests are
unworthy—quite the contrary. Any dog can be trained with enough pa-
tience and determination. But because a disabled person relies heavily
on their dog, it is important that these dogs be the best-tempered dogs “Does positive reinforcement
possible, so as to avoid any problems down the line. training work? Yes very much so.
My 2 ½ year old youngster “Ra
Kismet” was recently attacked
Once the trainers find a dog who suits their high standards, they be- whilst out walking with me by
gin the training. They start with basic obedience behaviors like sit, stay, another dog. Fortunately we both
come, down, heel. They then train the disability-related tasks that the escaped physical injury but it left
my boy psychologically scarred.
person will need, such as detecting medical problems. So much so, that if he heard or
saw another dog, he went into a
These dogs are trained for approximately 120 hours over the course of total over-reaction tantrum to a
point where all I could do was
six months or more! And if the dog is required to do a lot of tasks, for ‘hang on’.
example when helping a quadriplegic person, then it might take up to
two years and $20,000 to train that particular dog. Six weeks later, Ra Kismet, with
the aid of Positive Reinforcement
Training is now happily trotting
Why am I talking about service dogs? Because I want to inspire you! past dogs barking behind fences,
seen or otherwise, to a point
where after the occasional glance
You can use the same training concepts practiced by these professional in the direction of the barking
dog trainers to train your own dog at home. Yes, this means that you can dogs, he will re-set himself, tail
train your dog to help with the laundry or turn the lights off if you want wagging madly and his trauma to-
tally forgotten. All this was done
to! on a loose lead, soft collar using
click/treat. Positive Reinforcement
And the best part is that you can achieve this by training only for 15 to Training is, in my opinion, the
only way to train. Not only does it
20 minutes a day. I know that this might sound impossible, but it’s true! result in a well-mannered dog, but
This is the way that I’ve trained my dogs to do their really cool tricks, and one who’s so happy to work with
I rarely trained more than that per day. you, loves you and bonds with you
in the way ‘man or woman’s best
friend’ should, with complete love
Wouldn’t it be awesome if your dog could help you around the house? I
and loyalty.“ - Mary K Gill &
think so.
Ra Kismet

Search & Rescue and Law
Enforcement Dogs
The Power of
Search & Rescue and Law Enforcement Dogs

In my opinion, the noblest task that a dog can do involves search and
rescue, police work and other specialty work like cancer detection.
We’re all familiar with the classic image of a man trapped up to his neck
in snow due to an avalanche and saved by a search and rescue dog. These
dogs are incredible! They can find missing children and locate specific
scent derived from a piece of clothing.
I remember watching the television following the Haiti earthquake, and

they were using search and rescue dogs to find people stuck in the rub-
ble. These dogs were trained to walk on the rubble until they smelled
someone trapped underneath. Then they would bring their handler to
the spot where they had detected the person.
“When I was twelve, I found a

six month old Border Collie/Lab
mix. She was crazy, hyper, and
everything in her path was chewed
apart. I had never trained a dog
or any other animal before, but I
knew one thing … no one would
ever lay a hand on her. I started
researching how to train dogs and
found some amazing videos of
dogs that performed tricks and
listened to their owners every
command. I wanted that for Missy.
She now knows sixty tricks and

commands all thanks to teaching
her with Positive Reinforcements!!
We’ve created a really strong bond
from working as a team and I’ve
learned how amazing and intel-
ligent animals are. “
-Danielle & Missy

The Power of
Some of these dogs are even trained to detect explosives. You might have
seen them at the airport. They are actually highly accurate.
In 1972, a dog named Brandy had successfully avoided a tragedy when

she found a suitcase full of C-4 explosives at the New York City airport.
But at that time, detection dogs were not normally used and it was by
pure coincidence that Brandy was there for a demonstration on detecting
bombs.
These dogs are highly trained and they begin the training as puppies.
They first train the basic obedience skills so that the dog is well behaved
in a variety of locations, and then they train to detect specific smells.
So, how does this relate to your dog? You can use the same training tech-
niques used to train search and rescue dogs to train your dog to find
items in your home. You could train your dog to find your lost keys or
TV remote control. “The power of a clicker and
A few years ago, I trained my dog, Chase, to find my keys. I’d spray a little positive reinforcement is life-
changing. It’s been called bribery
garlic juice on them to make them easier to find, and then I’d hide them by those who don’t understand.
all over the house. I would put them behind the bed, on the couch and on But why would I want to punish
the computer desk. Chase was so excited to look for those keys. We really my dog for being afraid? Or pun-
ish a dog simply because they just
had a blast playing this game. might not understand what I want
them to do? And that’s essentially
These sorts of tasks can be extremely beneficial, especially if you often what I was being asked to do.
lose or forget your keys. The purpose is really to stimulate your dog. Dogs When I started treating her with
really depend on their noses for hunting, so you might as well use their the respect she so deserved, and
drive for something constructive. rewarding her for all her good be-
havior, her whole attitude changed
- much the same as happens with
Need help training your dog? “Find the Keys” is one of the dog training us as humans. The bond that has
challenges over at www.dogtrickacademy.com and you are welcome to developed between my dogs and
me is based on mutual respect and
join in! trust, and is deeper than one can
imagine. Positive reinforcement
training is the best and only way
to go - our dogs deserve nothing
less.” -Jackie & Makena

It’s Not Just for Dogs!
The Power of
It’s Not Just for Dogs!
Did you know that all sorts of animals can be

trained? Pigeons, chickens, parrots, dolphins,
whales, dogs and even cats can be trained
with positive reinforcements!
Recently, I saw a YouTube video of a cocka-

tiel (a parrot) that was trained to fetch small
multi-colored discs from one end of a table
and bring them back to his owner. In the
video description, it said that this behavior
was taught in only a week by giving the parrot
seeds for various “good behaviors.”
The owner trained her parrot by rewarding

four specific behaviors:
1) Nipping and biting the discs

2) Picking up the disc
3) Walking with the disc
4) Putting the disc in the owner’s hand
Each behavior was trained individually, start-

ing with the first one. Once the parrot
was successful, they moved on to the
next behavior until the parrot could
retrieve.
Isn’t it really cool how she was able to

train her parrot to fetch? It gets better!

The Power of
A little while ago, I couldn’t believe what I had just seen… A new mem-
ber had just joined the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion forum,
and she mentioned that she had trained her cat to do all sorts of tricks.
I was a little skeptical, because I had always been told that cats are not
trainable. To be honest, I was expecting a cheesy trick like a cat chasing
a red dot, which they all do.
But when she posted some videos, I was utterly amazed at what she
had accomplished! Her cat had been trained to respond to the com-
mon obedience commands such as sit, down and stand. But what re-
ally impressed me was her cat doing all sorts of tricks—some that were
incredibly advanced, like leapfrogging over her dog.
This is such a great demonstration of the power of positive reinforce-

ments. Her cat was more trained than most dogs will ever be. And
what’s even more amazing is that this cat only had three legs!
If she can train her cat to be well behaved and do tricks, surely you can “I used to be a corrective based
trainer, but I slowly started chang-
do the same with your dog! Right? ing my methods as I got into
adopting special needs dogs. But
This story brought back memories of a trainer I used to be good friends one very special dog has com-
pletely changed me into a Positive
with. She desperately wanted to go to dog-obedience school, but didn’t Reinforcement trainer. Oliver is a
know how well received she would be—because she kind of had a spe- street dog with serious fear-based
cial request that not too many students had. aggression. I started out with
Oliver using a mix of corrective
methods and positive methods.
Her request was definitely special: she wanted to train her pig instead But Ollie kept getting worse, not
of a dog. And, surprisingly, she found a good and open-minded train- better. I talked to other trainers in
town, and they all were telling me
ing facility that allowed her to bring her pig in for training classes. to keep doing what I was doing...
This training class focused on positive reinforcement training and, But I knew it was wrong. Oliver
amazingly, it worked! By the end of her training, her pig was just as certainly needed a different ap-
proach.
trained as the dogs… And she even continued her training into agility
and her pig was able to complete agility courses. I began joining forums, and
reading books recommended to
me, and have completely crossed
How amazing is that? Again, if someone can train a pig to behave, sure- over to the positive side. I am still
ly you can train your dog, too! working on issues that my igno-
rance caused with Ollie, but we are
slowly overcoming his fears.”
It’s no secret that I’m a “seminar junkie.” I love learning and using my
newfound knowledge to improve my life. I attended this one particular -Sara & Her Dogs
Oliver, Mouse, Boo, Scout and Zoe
seminar, and the information presented was a bit of an eye-opener for
me.

The Power of
The presenter talked about how whales are trained to jump out of the water. And, to my surprise, the big-
gest misconception is that people believe they are trained with electric shocks. This couldn’t be further
from the truth!
Whales are actually trained with positive reinforcements. They are taught that if they jump out of the water
and make a big splash, they will receive a delicious fish (or several).
There are many ways to train a whale. One of them is by tying a rope from one end of the pool to the other.
Then, the whale is given a fish each time it swims above the rope. They gradually move the rope higher
and higher until the whale has no choice but to jump out of the water to go above the rope and get the fish.
I think that it’s incredible how we can train such large animals simply by strategically giving positive rein-
forcements. And what’s really cool is that your dog can be trained the same way!

Your Dog’s Deepest Desire
The Power of
Your Dog’s Deepest Desire

Before you can begin to train your dog, you must first find out what your dog values most.
There are four primary reinforcements that you can train your dog with. These are:
1. Food and treats

2. Toys and play
3. Verbal praise
4. Physical touch
Now, think about your dog’s behavior and analyze his excitement to each one of these primary reinforce-
ments. Which one of these excites your dog the most? Rate them all on a scale of 1 to 10.
For example, here are my dog Onyx’s results:
1. Food and treats – 10/10

2. Toys and play – 5/10
3. Verbal praise – 6/10
4. Physical touch – 4/10
Your results are probably going to be different from mine, and that’s perfectly okay! All this test does is
tell you what you should be training your dog with. With my dog, Onyx, I would primarily use treats but
would also use verbal praise as she values both.
Next, you need to dive a little deeper into this primary reinforcement. Within each group, there are sub-
categories of reinforcements, and your dog is going to respond to each one differently.
Let’s take food and treats for example. This is a very big category that could include all sorts of foods such
as kibble, broccoli and steak. It helps to be specific in what your dog values, because it tells you what you
should be using to train your dog.
Make a list of what your dog values for each of the primary reinforcements. This can be anything from your
dog’s favorite dog treat, to his favorite toy, a special word or tone of voice, or a special place that he likes to
be touched.

The Power of
For example, here are my dog Onyx’s results:
Food and Praise:
1. Cooked meat like beef or chicken

2. Hot-dog sausages
3. Dry treats

Toys and Play
1. Long tug-toy made of fabric

2. Empty water bottle
3. Plush toy that squeaks
Verbal Praise
1. “Good girl!”
2. “Yeah!”
3. “Woo-hoo!”
Physical Touch
1. Gentle touch on side of body

2. Massaging neck and ears
3. Stroking shoulder blades
Your list is not going to be the same as mine. Every dog is unique and your dog will value different things.
I even had a dog on the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion forum who valued peas and carrots more
than meat. How about that!?
The positive reinforcement you choose for training your dog should ideally be consumed in less than five
seconds. This is to allow you to practice numerous repetitions in a short amount of time.
Let’s say that you were to give your dog a cookie each time he did something right. Then your dog would
spend 30 seconds or so eating the cookie and cleaning up the crumbs, plus he would get full after only five
or six cookies. So a cookie is not ideal for training. But if you were to train with pea-sized treats, then they
would be eaten in less than two seconds and your dog wouldn’t even be full after five minutes of training.
I have one more tip for you! Create variety in your positive reinforcements so that your training sessions
don’t become boring and predictable. Train your dog with chicken one day, sausages the next, and steak
the following day.
You should now be ready to start training your dog! Have fun!

Coming When Called
The Power of
Coming When Called

Did you know that the #1 problem that dog owners experience is that their dog won’t come when they want
him to? So if your dog ignores you when you call his name, then you are not alone!
In this training guide, I will discuss the potential reasons your dog might not be willing to come to you.
Then, I will give you three simple exercises that you can practice at home that will get your dog to come
running.
The first thing that you must evaluate is what’s in it for your dog? Is coming to you a rewarding or painful
experience?
Let’s take a common scenario:
A dog runs out of the front door and runs freely around
the neighborhood. The owner panics and desperately
tries to get the dog to come back. He tries yelling the
dog’s name but the dog doesn’t respond. Then he tries
yelling, “Come” and still the dog ignores him.
The owner is by now fuming with anger. He walks up to

his dog and yells at his dog, “Fido! Get over here!” and
the dog, out of fear, finally comes to the owner. Then the
owner gives him a scolding to punish the dog for run-
ning out of the door.
What has the dog learned from this experience?
If you look at this scenario from the dog’s point of view,

you would realize that the dog was actually rewarded
for running out of the front door, and punished for
coming back to his owner.
This means that this scenario will unfortunately hap-

pen again—and next time the owner will have an even
harder time to get his dog to come to him.

The Power of
Let me explain in greater detail:
Imagine the dog, bored out of his mind and locked up inside the house all day. All the dog wants to do is
experience a little freedom, explore the world and feel alive. So when the dog sees the front door standing
wide open, he sees it as an opportunity to experience these things.
And as soon as the dog runs out of the front door, that behavior is instantly rewarded. He gets to run any-
where he wants to, sniff anything he wants to … everything is rewarding to him!
Why would the dog ever go back to his owner? Especially since the owner is so angry the dog knows he’s going
to get punished once he comes back.
The dog will weigh up both options, and the one that is most rewarding will win every time. So the dog
weighs up: running free and feeling alive—or returning to the owner and getting scolded. That’s a no-
brainer for most dogs.
The owner in this scenario is well intentioned: he wanted to “punish” the dog for running out of the front
door so that it never happens again. But all the dog understands is that coming back to him is a painful
experience.
By understanding the power of positive reinforcements, you can analyze situations and see what reinforces
your dog. This is an invaluable tool that you must master to become a great trainer.
What could the owner have done differently?
Ideally, you would want to prevent this behavior by training the dog to remain indoors. But new dog-
owners might not be prepared or have the experience to train this before it happens. So, here’s what I would
do if I were in the shoes of the owner:
Assuming that they lived in a residential area with cars driving regularly, I would have no choice but to go
after the dog. But here’s what I would do differently: I would not get angry; I would entice the dog to come
to me and sound exciting. This way, the dog would see that coming to me is something pleasurable. I would
even give the dog a treat for coming to me—if I didn’t have one, I’d bring the dog home and give him a treat.
But afterwards, I would immediately start training the dog to stay indoors when the door is open. I would
do this by rewarding the dog for making the good choice of remaining inside the house. And I would do it
very slowly and incrementally, like this:
1) First, I would open the door slightly and analyze the dog’s behavior. If the dog remained calm
and focused on me, then I’d throw him a treat.

The Power of
2) Then, I would continue to reward the dog for remaining calmly inside the house while I slowly
opened the door until it was fully open. I would also keep a hand on the handle so that I could
quickly close it in the event that he decided to run outside.
3) Finally, I would challenge the dog by making it enticing to run outside, while continuing to
reward his good choice of staying calmly inside the house. I would walk outside and out of view
for a few seconds, or throw a toy outside and reward the behavior of staying inside.
By practicing this training game with your dog, you’ll be teaching him that it is much more pleasurable to
stay inside the house as opposed to running out of the front door. Plus, it will be extremely beneficial when
you bring in groceries or anytime you need the door open for a while.
You can even continue building on this training game! You can add a “break” command to let your dog
know that he’s allowed to go outside. But make sure that you reward him when he comes back inside so
that he still sees value in being inside the house.
Below are some easy exercises that you can practice with your dog. They are the same exercises that I’ve used
to train my dog to come on command.
Recall Exercise #1: The Boomerang
Requirements:
• A helper
• Your dog’s primary reinforcement
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to teach your dog to come to you upon hearing his name or the command
“Come,” and that coming to you is rewarding.
Set-Up:
Pick a large room in your home that is not distracting to your dog. Stand about six to eight feet away from
your helper, so that your dog can run back and forth between the two of you.

The Power of
Exercise:
1. Have your dog’s primary reinforcement in your hands or ready to give it once your dog gets to you.
2. Begin the exercise by asking your helper to hold your dog. Then call your dog’s name and entice your
dog to come to you. (You can alternatively use the command “Come.”)
3. As soon as your dog gets to you, immediately give him the positive reinforcement.
4. Now it’s your helper’s turn. Ask your helper to call your dog’s name and to give him a positive reinforce
ment once the dog gets to him.
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3 Step-4
Summary:
Practice this exercise a dozen of times or so every day for a week. You’ll instantly see a difference in your
dog’s response to his name—I guarantee it!

The Power of
Recall Exercise #2: The Rocket Launch
Requirements:
• A helper
• A large outdoor area
Description:
The purpose of this drill is to build your dog’s drive to come to you—so that your dog comes running as
fast as possible!
Set-Up:
Find a large outdoor area where you can train your dog off-leash, like a backyard or a fenced-in park that
has no distractions nearby (including other dogs).
Instruct your helper to hold on to your dog until you call your dog’s name or say the “Come” command. A
practical way for your helper to hold your dog is by holding the chest area, so that the dog can look at you
as you walk away from him (see picture).
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by asking your helper to hold your dog while you walk about eight feet away.
Then, try to entice your dog to come to you using your voice.
You can do that by saying, “Are you ready?” “Want to do something fun?” in an exciting and cheerful tone
of voice. But do not say your dog’s name or the “Come” command, as this will be the release word.
2. Once your dog is focused entirely on you, say your dog’s name or the “Come” command. And as you
say it, your helper should immediately let go of your dog. This will result in your dog coming to you
much faster than usual.
ment once the dog gets to him.

The Power of
Tip:
To build even more drive, wait
until your dog gets halfway to
you, then immediately turn
around and run away from your
dog. This will trigger your dog’s
chasing instinct and your dog
will now run as fast as he can to
get to you.
Summary:
This is my favorite exercise! I
practice it with my dogs all the
time when I am at the park or
when I notice that my dog is
walking too far ahead of me. It
really makes training fun, too!
Recall Exercise #3: The Right Choice

Requirements:
• A helper
• Some distracting objects
Description:
The purpose of this drill is to teach your dog to come to you even if there are distractions, and that coming
to you is more pleasurable than investigating the distractions.
Set-Up:
Pick a large area where you can train your dog. It can be either inside or outside—you won’t have to run in
this exercise so it can be done in a smaller area than the previous drill. But you will need to have a mini-
mum of eight feet between you and your helper.
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by placing some distracting objects on the floor between you and your helper.

The Power of
Make it easy for your dog to be successful. Start by placing ‘boring’ distractions like a shoe or newspaper,
then, as your dog learns to ignore those, place more distracting objects like toys and treats.
2. Ask your helper to hold your dog. Then call your dog’s name and entice your dog to come to you. (You
can alternatively use the command “Come.”)
ment once he gets to him.
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3 Step-4
Tip:
If your dog stops at the distracting object, it means that your dog has made the wrong choice so you should
not give your dog any positive reinforcement. Then, move the distracting object further away from the line
between you and your helper. If your dog goes out of his way to get the distracting object, then you will
need to remove it and use a less distracting object.
Summary:
Your dog will come after practicing the first two exercises, but he most likely won’t do so in a highly
distracting environment. So please practice this exercise—it could save your dog’s life one day.

Walking on a Loose Leash
The Power of
Walking on a Loose Leash

Talk about ironic. Just before I wrote this chapter, I went to the pool store to purchase some cleaning sup-
plies. And on my way there, I noticed a young girl walking her dog. They looked like the perfect fit for each
other, but there was one problem: her dog was completely dragging her around.
Her retractable leash was fully extended and her dog was a good 10–15 feet ahead of her. It was almost like
a scene out of a movie, the girl almost having to run to keep up with her dog. I wished that I could have
helped her. Hopefully she will read this eBook. Although this story may seem “extreme,” is it unfortunately
a big problem for many dog owners. Their dog learns early on that pulling on the leash is an acceptable
behavior, and when it’s left unchecked, it turns into a really nasty habit.
The solution is simple. But first, let’s analyze why your dog wants to pull on the leash.
The “traditional” dog trainer will tell you that your dog is pulling on the leash because your dog doesn’t
respect you as a pack leader, or that your dog is trying to dominate you. And that the solution is to correct
him with pops on the leash… But that is all nonsense!

The Power of
The truth is … your dog is getting reinforced for pull-

ing on the leash! That’s right—your dog wants to ex-
plore the world, smell new things, meet strangers and
meet other dogs. But if your dog is allowed to pull on
the leash to get to those things, then the behavior of
pulling is reinforced by getting to those things.
Remember, a positive reinforcement can be any-

thing that your dog values. So, for example, if your
dog values meeting another dog, then getting to
meet that dog can be deemed a positive reinforce-
ment.
Thus, if your dog pulls on the leash to get to anoth-
er dog, then the behavior of pulling is rewarded by
meeting that dog.
So, what can be done about it?
There are two things that you can do to prevent your

dog from pulling on the leash. First, you must limit
access to anything that might reinforce your dog in
the behavior of pulling. This means that you will have to stop walking whenever your dog pulls, or that you
go in the opposite direction.
Second, you must reward your dog for the behavior that you want—which is walking nicely with you on
the leash without pulling. You can easily tell your dog, “Good dog!” or give him a treat while he’s walking
nicely with you.
The following exercise is designed to teach your dog not to pull on the leash. It will work with any type of
dog, regardless of size or breed. However, if your dog has developed a habit of pulling on the leash, then it
will take longer to get your dog to stop pulling.
Loose Leash Exercise: The U-Turn
Requirements:
• A six-foot leash (non-retractable)

• A flat-buckle collar on your dog

The Power of
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to teach your dog to become aware of the pressure on his collar and to de-
termine whether the leash is tight or loose. This will also teach him that pulling does not get him closer to
where he wants to go.
Set-Up:
You will need to practice this exercise in a very large outdoor area like a park, a parking lot or a large yard—
somewhere you have lots of room to walk around and won’t be bothered by anyone.
Exercise:
1. Once you are at the park, make sure that

you hold your leash by the handle so that
your dog has lots of room to move ahead
of you if he chooses to. But as soon as your
dog pulls, you must immediately turn in
the opposite direction.
2. After a few repetitions, your dog will be-

gin to walk nicely on the leash. Give your
dog a positive reinforcement for walking
nicely with you.
Tip:
Once you are able to easily walk your dog

in a large park area, practice this same ex-
ercise on the sidewalk and where there are
distractions nearby.

The Power of
A more advanced technique:
If you want to challenge your training skills, only re-

ward your dog when he is in the reinforcement zone
(see attached diagram).
Try to visualize a straight line going from your left all

the way to your right. Anything that is behind this line
is what is called the reinforcement zone. This means that
your dog is only given a positive reinforcement when he
is behind this line.
Tip:
To keep your dog in the reinforcement zone, hold your

positive reinforcement near to or on your hip before
giving it to your dog. This way, he won’t go in front of
you.
Summary:
Although this is an advanced training technique, it is highly beneficial if you plan

to do agility or obedience trials in the future, as your dog can clearly see your body
language and hand signals.

Avoiding Food Possessiveness
39
The Power of
Avoiding Food Possessiveness

The first dog we got as a family was an off-white Lhasa apso named Tobbie. He was an extremely energetic
and loyal dog, but unfortunately we had no clue what we were doing in terms of training. So we did things
that resulted in Tobbie guarding his food from us.
If we got too close to his food bowl, he would stop eating and growl at us. And if we tried to take it away
from him, he would literally bite us.
Although it would be easy to blame Tob-

bie for this behavior, my family unknow-
ingly did some things that encouraged
the behavior, while at the same time we
did nothing to prevent it from becoming
worse.
As a child, I would bug and pet Tobbie

while he was eating. Now, anyone with
any basic understanding of dog training
will tell you that this is a very bad idea,
but my family didn’t know.
Can you imagine a worse scenario than

this? Actually, we did many things wrong!
The worst thing that we did was give Tob-
bie table food while we ate so that he
would stop whining. Little did we know that this was actually reinforcing the behavior!
These mistakes were of our own doing, and it wouldn’t be until a few years later that I realized how my ac-
tions impacted Tobbie’s behavior. Then I learned all about conditioning and counter-conditioning, and I
practiced some simple exercises with my second dog.
The difference was night and day. I went from having a dog who would growl at me, to being able to put
my hand in my dog’s food bowl while she was eating (yes, I’ve actually tried this!).
What exactly did I do in the exercises?

The Power of
I created a positive association to being near the food bowl. I gave my dog something incredibly delicious, even
more so than what she was eating so that she would see me as someone who adds value to her food bowl, not
someone who takes it away.
Below, you will find the exercise that I practiced with my dog. Practice it on a daily basis even if your dog
hasn’t shown any signs of food possessiveness. It’s much easier to prevent a problem from occurring than
to have to deal with it once it becomes a habit.
And if you have a puppy, this is the perfect time to do this exercise as the conditioning will last him a life-
time!
CAUTION:
During this exercise, you must be alert and visually attentive to your dog’s responses. Be careful and if you see
your dog showing his teeth, growling, lunging or trying to bite you, you should immediately stop this exercise
and seek professional help. Although this exercise has proven to be extremely beneficial for my dogs, I am in
no way responsible if your dog bites or injures you.
Food Possessiveness Exercise: Just Delicious!
Requirements:
• Your dog’s regular meal

• Highly desirable food or treats
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to associate pleasure to you being near your dog’s food during mealtime, or
while he is eating.
Set-up:
You will need to practice this exercise while your dog is eating from his bowl.
Exercise:
1. To begin this exercise, you will first need to give your dog his regular portioned meal. It can be either
breakfast or dinner.

The Power of
Step-1
2. While your dog is eating, walk towards your dog and drop
a highly desirable food or treat inside his bowl. It can be steak,
chicken, cheese or anything that your dog would see as more
valuable than his current meal.
3. Practice this exercise for a few days. Then, once your dog be
comes more comfortable with you being near him while he’s
eating, you can begin to touch his body while at the same time
put the higher valued food into his food bowl.
Tip:
The goal of this exercise is to change your dog’s perspective about

you being near his food. Food is a scarce resource in the wild and
dogs will protect it. But with this exercise, you will be training
your dog that good things happen when you are near his food.
For advanced trainers:
Once your dog is comfortable with you being near his food, you
can pick up your dog’s bowl and add the highly desirable food or
treats inside. This way, when you give it back to your dog, it will
be better and tastier!
Possessiveness over toys and bones: Step-2
This same concept can be applied to possessiveness over toys and bones. The only difference is that you
must give your dog something of extreme value (that is more valuable than the toy or bone) as you take it
away. And I recommend that you give your dog his toy or bone again once he’s eaten the delicious treat.
This is a win-win situation for your dog: he gets to eat a delicious treat and he gets his toy or bone back—what
a great deal!
Important:
Be patient with your dog! You should only work at your dog’s current comfort level. If your dog shows signs
of discomfort, then stop there. Throw a few treats in his direction and continue to work at that level until
your dog accepts you coming closer.

I Love Getting Groomed!
43
The Power of
I Love Getting Groomed!

In the last chapter, I introduced you to our first family dog, Tobbie. He was quite the adventurous little dog
and he loved getting dirty.
But the problem is that Tobbie hated being groomed. In fact, trimming his nails was a huge struggle and
you’d never know when he was going to snap and bite you. It was so bad, that we couldn’t even bring him
to the groomer without worrying about what might happen.
His aggressive behavior diminished greatly once we started to exercise him daily. But his distaste for being
groomed, touched and handled remained. What we did was “bribe” him with treats while we groomed
him. But we had to be quick because as
soon as the food was gone, the bad be-
havior returned.
My original instinct to use food was

correct, but my understanding and ap-
plication of positive reinforcements was
wrong. I was giving the food at the
wrong time, and sometimes I’d even
give the food right after Tobbie’s bad
behavior. This actually reinforced the
bad behavior!
What I did with my second dog was

to use the food to reinforce the behav-
ior of being calm and accepting of my
touch. She would only receive the treat
if she was in a peaceful and calm state
of mind.
Did it work? Absolutely!
My dogs now love being groomed! And I’m not exaggerating—one of my dogs will actually jump up on
the grooming table to be brushed. This is solely due to the fact that I created a positive association to being
touched and groomed.

The Power of
Will this work with any dog? Yes!
I’ve successfully used this training concept with an older dog, about ten years old, to overcome her fear of
being petted on the head. For some reason, she was fearful of anyone touching her on the head. I suspect
that her previous owner might have hit her.
I practiced the exercise below for one week. The results were remarkable! She was allowing me to touch her
anywhere on her body, including her head and ears!
So if your dog is not enthusiastic about being touched, groomed or examined, then you will love this ex-
ercise! And if you have a puppy, this will be even better because the conditioning that you do now will last
a lifetime!
CAUTION:
During this exercise, you must be alert and visually attentive to your dog’s responses. Be careful and if you see
your dog showing his teeth, growling, lunging or trying to bite you, you should immediately stop this exercise
and seek professional help. Although these exercises have proven to be extremely beneficial for my dogs, I am
in no way responsible if your dog bites or injures you.
Grooming Exercise #1: I Love Your Touch
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to create a positive association to your touch, so that you can touch any part
of your dog’s body. This is essential to being able to groom your dog.
Set-Up:
Ideally, you should exercise your dog with a walk or a hike before practicing this exercise. This will make
your dog calmer and it will be easier to train him.

The Power of
Exercise:
Step-1
1. Begin this exercise with your dog in a standing or sitting po
sition. You will also want to have your treats ready in one hand
while leaving your other hand free to touch your dog.
2. Touch your dog in an area with which he is comfortable, like

his back, side or neck. As soon as you feel your dog’s fur, imme
diately give your dog a treat. This simple exercise will teach
your dog that the sensation of being touched equals getting a
treat, which is a pleasant experience.
3. As your dog becomes comfortable with your touch, you can

gradually move to more sensitive areas like his head, nose, lips,
paws, tail, etc.
Analyze your dog’s response to your touch. If your dog is un-

comfortable or showing signs of stress when being touched in a
specific area (like licking his lips, yawning, tail between the legs),
then work around that area for a few days until your dog can ac-
cept your touch there.
Remember, this type of training takes time and requires patience.
Tip:
Step-2
To make this exercise more efficient, bring a treat to the same hand you’ve touched your dog with before giv-
ing it to your dog. This will increase the value for him of your hand being near his body and touching him (see
attached pictures for clarification).

The Power of
Grooming Exercise #2: The Grooming Experience
Requirements:
• A grooming brush
• Highly desirable food or treats Step-1
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to create a positive association to

the sight and feeling of a grooming brush. This will make your
grooming sessions much more enjoyable as your dog will see
the brush as something pleasant.
Set-Up:
Practice “Grooming Exercise #1” for two minutes before at-

tempting this one. This will make your dog calmer and more
at ease. You should also place your dog on a grooming table or
wherever you are planning to groom him on a regular basis.
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by placing the brush directly against

your dog’s fur. It can be anywhere on your dog but ideally
in a location that he enjoys or doesn’t mind.
2. As soon as your brush touches your dog’s fur, immediately

give your dog a treat. This simple exercise will teach your
dog to associate the sensation of the brush with receiving a
treat, which is a pleasant experience. Step-2
3. Once your dog is calm and relaxed with the sensation of the brush, stroke your dog’s fur once with the
brush and then immediately give him a treat.
Continue practicing this exercise until your dog is comfortable with you brushing every part of his body.

The Power of
Tip:
As your dog begins to enjoy being brushed (due to the treats being given), you can increase the amount of
brush strokes for every treat that you give. You could stroke your dog two, three or four times before giving
him a treat.
Summary:
I know that this exercise is time-consuming, but the results are well worth it! The time that you spend now
will give you a dog who enjoys being groomed.
Grooming Exercise #3: The Evil Nail Clipper
Requirements:
• A helper
• A nail clipper
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to create a positive association to the sight and sensation of clipping your
dog’s nails. This is such a great exercise to practice with your dog, because once this is trained correctly,
trimming your dog’s nails will be no big deal.
Set-Up:
Since you will have both hands tied up with your dog’s paw and nail clippers, your helper will be in charge
of giving your dog a treat at the right moment. Let your helper read these instructions.
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by picking up your dog’s paw with one hand, and placing the nail clippers adjacent
to the paw with your other hand. The goal is get your dog to feel the nail clippers without trimming any
nails yet.
As soon as the nail clippers are touching your dog’s paw, your helper should immediately give your dog a
treat.

The Power of
Step-1
Practice this simple exercise with all four paws, and don’t pro-
ceed further until a day or two later.
2. Once your dog is comfortable with seeing and feeling the nail
clippers, the next step is to actually trim
one of your dog’s nails.
Begin by picking up one of your dog’s paws with one hand, and
trimming a nail with the nail clippers with your other hand.
Each time a nail has been clipped, your helper should immedi-
ately give your dog a treat.
Be very careful not to be quick in this exercise—you want to

make this as pleasant as possible for your dog. Cut off small
slivers of nails in the beginning for training purposes.
Tip:
You don’t have to trim all of your dog’s nails all at once! The
objective is to make trimming your dog’s nails a pleasant ex-
perience for your dog. So if your dog is becoming anxious or
nervous, let him go and continue this exercise a few hours later.
Summary: Step-2
This might be another time-consuming exercise, but the conditioning that you do now will pay off later,
when you will be able to trim your dog’s nails with ease.

Sit, Lie Down and Stand
On Command!
The Power of
Sit, Lie Down and Stand On Command!

Training your dog to respond to the basic obedience commands is extremely beneficial for numerous
reasons.
Personally, I use the basic obedience behaviors like “Sit” and “Down” to control my dog in highly distract-
ing environments and dangerous situations. For example, I always get my dog to sit before going outside
or exiting a vehicle. And if there is another dog nearby, I can get my dog to sit quietly while she watches
him walk by.
But if this doesn’t convince you to train the basics, this should: by mastering the basics, you will be laying
the foundations for training more advanced behaviors. Because what you really learn while training the
basics is the mechanism of behavior conditioning.
In practical terms, training your dog to do a fancy trick such as “Spin” is done using the same techniques
as for the basic obedience behaviors.

The Power of
Are you ready to start training your dog?
There are two ways that you can teach your dog the basic obedience behaviors. You can capture it by wait-
ing for your dog to do it and reward it with a positive reinforcement. Or, you can lure the dog into the
position by using a piece of food.
Both of these training techniques will work. The capturing method might take a while to get your dog to
offer all three behaviors, but if you are patient then this will work. I personally prefer the luring technique
and I focus my training guides on this training method.
The only drawback to luring is that it will only work if your dog is food-motivated. If your dog has no in-
terest in food, then you will have to use the capturing method. Some more advanced training techniques
like shaping and targeting could be used, but because of their complexity, I cannot discuss them in length
in this eBook.
Your dog’s irresistible treats!
Before you begin the exercises below, it is extremely important that you first find a food or treat that your
dog really loves. It must be something that excites your dog to the point where he would do anything to get
it. It can be anything he loves—chicken, sausages, beef, liver, etc.
Obedience Behavior #1: The Sit
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize yourself and your dog with the luring technique by getting
your dog in the “Sit” position.
Set-Up:
Find a non-distracting environment where your dog can focus entirely on you without getting interrupted
or distracted. It can be anywhere—for example, your living room, your basement or your bedroom.

The Power of
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by holding a treat in front of your dog’s nose. But do not let your dog eat the treat
until he is in the “Sit” position.
2. Next, move your treat upwards and forwards so that your hand moves towards your dog’s eyes and ears.
3. When you move the treat in this manner, your dog will have no choice but to “Sit” in order to follow the
treat. This gives you the opportunity to reinforce the behavior of sitting. So as soon as your dog sits, im
mediately release the treat and let your dog eat it.
4. Once your dog has mastered your lure and is easily lured into the sit position, you may want to add a
“Sit” command. You can do this by saying it one second before you lure your dog into the position.
Here’s a summary of each step that you must do:
Step 1: Say the command, “Sit.”

Step 2: Lure your dog into the sit position.
Step 3: Release the treat.
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3

The Power of
Tip: In order for this training technique to work properly, you must have precise timing. This means that
each step must take place within one second of the previous one.
Command Only:
It may take your dog a week or two before he can perform the behavior without you having to lure him.
This is normal and it’s just a matter of repetitions. So keep practicing! If your dog is really not “getting it,”
then come to the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion forum and we will help you.
Obedience Behavior #2: The Down
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize yourself and your dog with the luring technique and to teach
your dog the “Down” position.
Set-Up:
You can train this behavior with your dog starting from either a sitting or standing position. But I person-
ally find it easier to begin from a sitting position
Exercise:
until he is in the “Down” position
2. Next, move your treat downwards so that your hand moves towards the middle of your dog’s front legs.
3. When you move the treat in this manner, your dog will have no choice but to “Lie down” in order to
follow the treat. This gives you the opportunity to reinforce the behavior of lying down. So as soon as
your dog lies down, immediately release the treat and let your dog eat it.
If your dog has trouble following the lure, try releasing it halfway down and gradually move it lower until

The Power of
you can get your dog into the down position. And if you have a small dog, you may want to practice by the
edge of stairs, so that you can move your lure lower than your dog.
4. Once your dog has mastered your lure and is easily lured into the down position, you may want to add
a “Down” command. You can do this by saying it one second before you lure your dog into the position.
Step 1: Say the command “Down.”

Step 2: Lure your dog into the down position.
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3 Step-4
Tip:
Once your dog has mastered both the sit and down behaviors, you can easily alternate between the two—
but be sure to give your dog a treat for each behavior!
Command Only:
This is normal and it’s just a case of repetition. So keep practicing! If your dog is really not “getting it,” then
come to the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion forum and we will help you.

The Power of
Obedience Behavior #3: The Stand
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize yourself and your dog with the luring technique and to teach
your dog the “Stand” position.
Set-Up:
You can train this behavior with your dog starting from either a sitting or down position. But I personally
find it easier to begin from a sitting position
Exercise:
until he is in the “Stand” position
2. Next, move your treat backwards towards you so that your hand moves away from your dog.
3. When you move the treat in this manner, your dog will have no choice but to “Stand” in order to follow
the treat. This gives you the opportunity to reinforce the behavior of standing.
Make sure that you move your lure just enough so that your dog’s hind legs are straightened. Be careful not
to lure your dog too far, as you would then be rewarding your dog for walking instead of standing.
4. Once your dog has mastered your lure, and is easily lured into the stand position, you may want to add
a “Stand” command. You can do this by saying it one second before you lure your dog into the position.
Step 1: Say the command “Stand.”

Step 2: Lure your dog into the stand position.

The Power of
Step-1
Step-2 Step-3
Tip:
A really fun game to challenge your dog is to alternate randomly between all three behaviors. So you could
do: “Sit, Down, Stand” and then do “Down, Stand, Sit.” There are actually 27 different combinations! Try
it—but make sure that you give your dog a treat after each one.
Command Only:
This is normal and it’s just a matter of repetitions. So keep practicing! If your dog is really not “getting it,”
then come to the www.dogtrickacademy.com discussion forum and we will help you.

Spin, Roll Over and
Figure Eight!
The Power of
Spin, Roll Over and Figure Eight!

What really got me interested in dog training was the desire to train my dog to do tricks. And once I was
able to train my dog to do a trick, I was instantly hooked!
I remember the first trick that I taught my dog was, “Shake a paw.” Although very basic in nature, it was
the coolest thing to me. And this developed into all sorts of tricks like “Jumping into my arms” and “Clean
up your toys.”
There’s nothing quite like having guests over and see-

ing how amazed they are when my dogs perform the
tricks. The one trick that everybody loves is “Shy,”
which is my Siberian Husky touching her nose with
one of her paws. It’s extremely cute!
In this chapter, I will give you some training guides

that you can use to train your dog to do tricks. These
tricks are not complicated and any dog can do them.
Plus, you’ll be using the same luring technique as de-
scribed in the obedience training from the previous
chapter.
If your dog has not mastered the basic obedience be-

haviors from the previous chapter, I recommend that
you do that first. These tricks are slightly more diffi-
cult to train and will require a good understanding of
luring before you proceed.
Also, some tricks will require your dog to be able to sit or lie down. For example, your dog must first be
able to lie down before you can train him to, “Roll over.”
Okay, let’s get started!
First, be sure to have some highly desirable food or treats that your dog really loves. It must be something
that excites your dog to the point where he would do anything to get it. It can be anything he loves—chick-
en, sausages, beef, liver, etc.

The Power of
Trick #1: The Spin
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to teach your dog to “Spin” in a circle numerous times.
Set-Up:
Find a quiet and non-distracting environment so that your dog can focus entirely on you.
Exercise:
until he completes the criteria described below.
2. Next, move your treat in a semicircle, going to the right. If you can imagine a circle around your dog, you
will want to move your treat starting from your dog’s nose to your dog’s tail or rear end.
This way, your dog will be doing a half circle while following the lure. As soon as your dog completes the
half circle, immediately let go of the treat. This will reinforce your dog in this behavior.
3. As your dog becomes comfortable following the lure in this manner, you can then move the lure in a
complete circle. If you do this correctly, your dog should then do a complete circle. Again, immediately
let go of your treat once your dog turns around.
4. Practice the previous two exercises until your dog fully masters them and can do them effortlessly. The
next step is a little more challenging: it requires that you lure your dog in two or more circles before you
release the treat.
First, begin by training your dog to complete one circle. Then, once your dog can do it easily, move your
lure in a circle twice in a row before releasing the treat. You can incrementally make it more challenging
until your dog is doing four or five turns before you release the treat.

The Power of
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3 Step-4
Step-5
5. If you want to associate a command to the behavior of spinning, then you will need to say your com
mand, “Spin” one second before you lure your dog into the position.
Step 1: Say the command “Spin.”

Step 2: Lure your dog to spin two or three turns.
Please be patient—it may require a week or two before your dog will respond to the “Spin” command with-
out having to lure him.

The Power of
Trick #2: The Roll Over
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to teach your dog to “Roll over” numerous times.
Set-Up:
It would be ideal if you could train on a soft surface like carpet or a grass area, as a hard floor might not be
comfortable for your dog’s back.
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by placing your dog in a down position. Hold a treat in front of your dog’s nose, but
do not let him eat it until he completes the criteria described below.
2. Next, move your lure to your right and towards your dog’s shoulder so that your dog has to look side
ways to follow the treat. Your dog should remain in a down position for this.
Once your dog has followed the lure and is looking towards his back, immediately let go of the treat. This
is an uncomfortable position for your dog, so you want to build value in being in this position by giving
positive reinforcements.
3. As your dog becomes comfortable following the lure in this manner, you can then move the lure further
until your dog drops onto his side. Immediately let go of your treat once your dog is on his side.
4. The biggest challenge in teaching the roll over is to get your dog to roll onto his back. Some dogs really
don’t like the feeling of rolling on their back, so you will need to make sure that you give your positive
reinforcement with lots of praise as soon as your dog completes his first roll over.
An easy way to get your dog to “Roll over” is to do the exercise as described above, but with momentum.
What I mean by this is if you move your lure quickly towards your dog’s shoulder, and if he follows it with
enough momentum, he will have no choice but to roll over.

The Power of
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3 Step-4
Step-5
5. If you want to associate a command to the behavior of rolling over, then you will need to say your com
mand, “Roll over” one second before you lure your dog.
Step 1: Say the command “Roll over.”

Step 2: Lure your dog to roll over.
Tip:
In order for the command to be properly conditioned, you must have precise timing. This means that each
step must take place within one second of the previous one.

The Power of
Trick #3: The Figure Eight
Requirements:
Description:
The purpose of this exercise is to teach your dog to “Figure eight” in and out of your legs.
Set-Up:
Find a location with a non-slippery surface like carpet, grass or asphalt. Training your dog on a hardwood
or ceramic floor might be slippery for your dog.
Exercise:
1. Begin this exercise by placing a treat in both of your hands. Hold your right hand in front of your
dog’s nose, but do not let him eat it until he completes the criteria described below.
Place your left hand behind you and between your legs. Lure your dog towards the middle of your legs and
wiggle your left hand until your dog notices that you have a treat in it. Once he sniffs your left hand, im-
mediately let go of the treat and let him eat it (see pictures).
The goal of this exercise is to get your dog to follow the lure in your right hand, and to notice that there is
food in your left hand.
2. Next, you will want to do the same exercise as above, but this time once your dog has noticed the treat
in your left hand, you will want to move your hand around your leg. As soon as your dog goes around
your leg, immediately let go of the treat (see picture).
3. The final step of this exercise is to continue the lure to the other side. You would begin the same way as
above, but after your dog is lured around your leg, you would continue luring him with your right hand
around your other leg. This will result in your dog doing a complete figure eight in and out of your legs.
4. Associating a command to this behavior is a little challenging because most dogs rely heavily on visual
signals to do this trick. What I recommend instead is that you teach your dog to follow hand signals as
opposed to a verbal command.

The Power of
Step-1 Step-2
Step-3 Step-4
Step-5 Step-6
This can be accomplished by luring your dog two or three times in a row, then repeating the action without
food in your hand. This way, your dog won’t know whether there’s food in your hand or not.
And once your dog has completed the “figure eight” behavior, you grab a treat from your pocket and give
it to him.

More FREE Stuff On The Way!
The Power of
More FREE Stuff On The Way!

Exciting news! Because you’ve taken a leap of faith and trusted me with your e-mail address, I will send you
more free training guides, videos and presentations as soon as they are completed.
If you’ve downloaded this eBook anywhere other

than www.dogtrickacademy.com, or if someone
has given you this eBook, simply go to my website
and enter your e-mail address to download this
eBook again. This will give me permission to send
you more amazing free dog-training stuff.
In the near future, I plan on expanding these train-

ing guides to include more advanced training con-
cepts like clicker training, shaping and targeting. So
be on the lookout for my e-mails!
Thank you!
I want to personally thank you for downloading and reading my eBook. It has been a wonderful experience
writing it and I am grateful for the opportunity to help. If this eBook has helped you in any way, shape or
form, I would love to hear from you or to read about your successes.
Best wishes,
Jean Cote

www.dogtrickacademy.com

The Power of Positive Reinforcements

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The Power of

POSITIVE Reinforcements By Jean Cote

1 JEAN COTE Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

A Note from Jean

No matter where I turned, or whose

In the beginning, I trained the way

But it didn’t take too long before I

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Hollywood’s Little Secret

Chuckie tries everything to make his parents understand how im-

The best part is it’s ALWAYS

- Tâmara & Laika

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

What an incredible dog! But surely this dog is

So, how did they train Bingo to do all of those

The trick that I loved the most in the movie was

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Sadly, I didn’t discover positive reinforcement training until later on in

My dog, Shivon is my best friend.

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

If you don’t know or have never heard

In this particular video, the Canine

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

A Dog Is Truly Man’s (Or

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

A Dog Is Truly Man’s

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

These dogs are trained by professionals. The trainers begin by looking

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Search & Rescue and Law Enforcement Dogs

I remember watching the television following the Haiti earthquake, and

“When I was twelve, I found a

She now knows sixty tricks and

-Danielle & Missy

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

In 1972, a dog named Brandy had successfully avoided a tragedy when

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

It’s Not Just for Dogs!

Did you know that all sorts of animals can be

Recently, I saw a YouTube video of a cocka-

The owner trained her parrot by rewarding

1) Nipping and biting the discs

Each behavior was trained individually, start-

Isn’t it really cool how she was able to

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

This is such a great demonstration of the power of positive reinforce-

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Your Dog’s Deepest Desire

1. Food and treats

For example, here are my dog Onyx’s results:

1. Food and treats – 10/10

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

For example, here are my dog Onyx’s results:

Food and Praise:

1. Cooked meat like beef or chicken

1. Long tug-toy made of fabric

1. Gentle touch on side of body

Copyright © 2012 Positive Training Ltd. | www.dogtrickacademy.com

Coming When Called

Let’s take a common scenario: