Which behaviors build your dog's "confidence"?

In the last blog on how to build your dog's confidence, I encouraged you to pick a behavior that your dog is already pretty good at, and start reinforcing it consistently in many contexts.  This is a great way to start building a strong learning history of "success" for your fearful dog.

But which behaviors to start with? I had several people message me with this question, so in the video below I talk about how I choose behaviors to work on with dogs who are very anxious. 

An important note: You don't HAVE to choose just one behavior to start with!  But I find that my clients make better progress and feel less overwhelmed if we start with a very small number of training tasks. So if focusing on just one behavior makes training a little less overwhelming for you, review the video below. 

In short, you're looking for a behavior that:

• You won't hesitate to reinforce just about every time your dog does it, the way they do it right now; 
• Is "portable"- that is, can be done in lots of places, and whether your dog is stationary or moving;
• Is multi-purpose, or useful in many different contexts.

I'd love to hear how YOU choose behaviors to train, and what behavior you picked to get started! Shoot me an email at [email protected] and tell me what you chose to reinforce.