Blog

As a behavior consultant working in sport, working-dog, and pet-dog environments, one theme remains consistent: we want to set our dogs up for success. Whether we're training for obedience, rally, agility, disc, detection work, or tackling big behavior concerns, positive-reinforcement trainers break training into small, achievable steps. By minimizing mistakes, we reduce stress and build confidence.

To make this simple for dog guardians, I often rely on a simple framework I call the Four C's of Behavior Modification: Control, Continue, Change, and Create.

Serious behavior problems are not the norm in the competitive sports world, but they do happen. Training can certainly affect behavior, and behavior can influence training! They are not the same!

Most behavior problems have underlying 'emotional' issues and training alone isn't the answer. If your dog is barking at someone, which is commonly a 'distance increasing' behavior that comes from the place of fear, we need to acknowledge that emotion, not suppress it. We can certainly use positively trained skills like obedience to replace an undesired behavior, but it needs to come from a place of confidence and choice, not force or coercion.