반려견을 위한 임계점 게임: 반려견의 이목을 집중시키는 대상이 되는 단계별 훈련 계획

So, that's where working on your reinforcement zone is going to have a dog who's comfortable being on your right-hand side. And the final move is much easier, and that is a same side direction change. So, if your dog's on the left, pretend there's a painted line on the ground. You can put duct tape on the ground if you want. You're going to walk on a line and just turn and go back on that same line. So, your dog is on the left. They go all the way around the outside. You know, you're pivoting in the middle as you make that turn. Your dog's on the outside. They have further to go. It's a same side about turn. You're going back in the same direction. Those are two turns. Our dog's going forward. We need our dogs going back. But I want you to be consciously aware of the two sets of mechanics. Because one will help the dog reorient to you. The other has the potential of losing the dog's focus. And we will do it as a test down the road. But the goal is, when your dog is in the presence of one of these triggers, we help them reorient back to us. Now, if that sounds vaguely familiar, I did talk about this in podcast episode number 88, where I'm talking about working on exterior distractions for your dog. Okay. So, what you're going to do is you're going to practice this around your house. You worked on those five elements separately. So, what we're going to do, we're going to walk up to a door, touch the handle of the door, and do a front cross, aka an inward turn towards your dog. Touch the handle, inward turn towards your dog, change side, say the word search, and toss a cookie on the ground. You're going to do that two or three times. Touch the handle, say search, turn, toss a cookie on the ground. Now, this next time, you're going to touch the handle, then say the word cook, and you're going to touch your hip, the side that the dog is on, obviously. So, if your dog's on the left, you're going to open the door with your right, or touch the handle of the door with your right. If the dog is on your right, you're going to touch the handle with your left. Say the word cook first, touch your hip, and feed the dog. You're going to do this in any threshold around your house. You're going to just pick one, get it really good at the one, and then we're going to move to another. It's a threshold game. It's a game. It's fun. Your dog's going to love it, and it's going to create a great trigger for you. So, touch the handle. The handle becomes the trigger that tells the dog to reorient to you instead of looking forward to what's on the other side of that door. That's where we're headed.

And what we're doing is currently, all the value is on the other side of the door. We are telling the dog, here's the relationship with me. There's a lot of value to be had with me. So, when I touch the door, I might be dealing out value over here. I might be dealing out value on my side. Now, when you get to the place where you can touch and turn and you can feed your dog in reinforcement zone, now we're going to open the door. Do the same thing. Sometimes do a front cross, a search, drop a cookie on the ground. But now you're probably at a point where mostly you're going to open the door and then do a front cross, touch your side, say cook and feed the dog in reinforcement zone on your side. Eventually, you're going to walk up to the door, open the door, maybe take two steps into the room, do that inward turning front cross on the way back, maybe three steps towards the door. You're going to give one cookie on your side, take one more step, another cookie in reinforcement zone on your side. So, it's a random amount of reinforcement. Eventually, the dog's going to go, this is a cookie fun game. When we cross a threshold, really cool things happen to me. So, the threshold game teaches the dog how to orient to you and not be concerned about what's happening out there. And once you get good, you might walk five steps into the room before you do an inward turn, a front cross and walk part of the way out. You could like decide one trip, you're going to feed on your hip, cook, feed on your hip, take one more step, cook, feed on your hip. Every step out of the room, you're feeding on your hip. Remember, mix up the value of your reinforcement. Don't just use boring old kibble. Use a mixture of super exciting treats with your dog. And when you're starting this, I would recommend really high value reinforcement. And then you get to a place where you might reinforce them once and you might reinforce them twice. You might walk in and out of that one room, then go to another room, start the behavior again. So, it might take, we go in and out of one room, but in the second room, we get reinforcement or reinforcement on the threshold game for both rooms. You've got a great game, my friend. And now you're going to use it to the outdoor. So, if dogs get excited going outside because they know they're going for a walk or they know where they're going for a car ride, it may take more tossing the cookie back or forward turning and rewarding in reinforcement zone. But if you're patient and you grow this up, I promise you, your dog is going to learn. Thresholds mean orient to you.

And when I was doing this with my friend's puppy, literally in less than 10 minutes, that puppy was orienting back to her and not being concerned with what was going on in the environment in my building. Now, I even went to the place where I got my puppy out and I started playing games with my puppy, kind of as a tease, aka distraction. And he wouldn't even look. And that's when we went to the final test. And that is instead of an inward turn, she walked in and she turned to do a same side turn to walk out. Why is this a test? Because on an inward turn, the dog is kind of forced to follow you because your turn gets their attention and they come with. But when you're doing a same side turn, you can lose your dog as they go off towards the distraction while you try to head out the door. That's a real test on how much value have you built for the threshold game. So, we only use that same side turn occasionally. But once your dog says, I pick you, you can use it as often as you like. All right. I would love for you to play the threshold game.