Dog training can be part of every day life

The great thing about dog training is that it’s adaptable to your life style. 

You do not have to train for hours on end. You just have to make the time you do train effective. 

One way of doing that is having set criteria. For example, dogs can learn how to bow. This involves the dog leaning down onto their elbows, keeping their bum in the air. You could spend hours trying to train this position, yet without rewarding a set criteria the dog may never understand what you’re looking for, and most commonly will lay down instead. 

Approaching each training session knowing what you’re looking for, in this case the trainer marking and rewarding the dog moving their head towards the floor, helps communicate to the dog what you are looking for in stages, instead of expecting the full behaviour in one go. 

After multiple repetitions of rewarding the dog for head movement, the dog may exaggerate the movement and lower their elbows,  which could be marked and rewarded heavily and then become the set criteria for earning the reward (instead of the initial starting criteria of head movement). 

The criteria could then be increased to when the dog fully lowers their forearm onto the floor, keeping their bum in the air. This essentially breaks down the full behaviour or position into steps that the dog understands and is eventually developed into the full bow, or other position or behaviour that you are training. 

Even if the only time you train is the few minutes it takes to boil a kettle, make it count by breaking it down and being consistent with what you are rewarding.