July 27th, 2012
By Eric Letendre
Did you ever notice…
…that if your wife (or husband, girlfriend, boyfriend) is mad at you they don’t need to say a word.
The other day I was in a bad mood over something and Rachael walks into the house and asks, “What’s wrong?”
She could tell by my body posture that I was not happy.
This is very important for anyone training their dog.
Especially when it comes to the recall (come when called) command.
One of the most influential trainers in my life taught me the concept of drives in dog training and it is really fascinating stuff.
You see, your dog is always in one type of drive. There are three primary drives in every dog:
Pack
Prey
Defense
Your dog has to be in the correct drive when you are training.
When you stand up straight and talk in an even tone of voice your dog goes into pack drive. Get on the ground and talk in a high pitched voice and your dog will go into prey drive.
Stand leaning forward and lower your voice and your dog goes into defense drive.
When you call your dog to you, your dog has to be in the correct drive which is prey drive.
If you are leaning forward and if you lower your tone of voice it will be difficult for your dog to come when called because your body language is communicating a different message.
This happens quite often. The dog is sniffing and poking around and the owner says, “Junior, come on, come here.” The dog ignores the command and the owner gets frustrated: “Junior, come here. JUNIOR, GET OVER HERE” as they lean forward and point their finger.
The dog looking at the owner and hearing the tone will avoid the owner’s command to come or if the dog does it, the dog will do it reluctantly.
The correct drive is prey. Get your dog to switch into prey drive and your tone and body language will be correct, making it much easier for your dog to come to you.
It’s easy when you become aware of it.
Anyway, your dog will get much better at coming when called by just making this one change.
There is a whole section on drives and how to use them for better dog training results over at The Ultimate Online Recall Course:
All the best,
Eric
Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States and has been training dogs for over 20 years, teaching regular, average, every-day owners all over the world how to get the training results they want as fast as possible. Eric is also the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Improve Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
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Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States. For more than 20 years, he has been developing dog training techniques that have worked for dog owners all over the world. Eric operates from a home office or a laptop while traveling and draws on his experience and passion for dog training to show others how to develop a dog that is truly “Man’s Best Friend”.
Eric is the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Hack Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
