Confidence building and play in new or challenging contexts

Enrichment activities can be great confidence builders for fearful dogs. But how do you move enrichment, and confidence, into new or difficult scenarios that make your dog nervous?

Generalizing skills, including enrichment skills, to a variety of settings is an important part of building your dog's confidence and helping them to live a happier, fuller life.  But it isn't always easy.  In the following videos, I explain and give examples of two important generalization tips:
1) Use generalization aids ("props"). This is why I use "treat targets" so often with my students;
2) Generalize in TINY steps. Most sensitive dogs need generalization work broken down into much smaller steps that you might think.

Learn about using props to aid generalization: 

Learn how tiny the training steps need to be for many sensitive dogs, to move an enrichment game into a situation that your dog finds difficult: 

Watch a short case study with Skye learning to be more comfortable around her stroller: 

I hope you enjoyed these videos and now have a better idea of how you can generalize your dog's enrichment games to difference contexts!

If you're struggling to get your dog interested in enrichment at all, check out my free guide to Your Fearful Dog's 1st Enrichment Game.