The counting game is a great game to play with your dog that teaches them how to relax. It creates a systematic way for you to increase the amount of time your dog relaxes. Additionally, by counting out loud you are giving your dog verbal feedback they are on the right track.
How to Play:
- Start with your dog in a down on their mat.
- If they aren’t lying down with their hip rolled to a more relaxed position, put a treat on their nose and bring it to their back hip, when they shift on their hip deliver the treat on the mat near their hip.
- With your dog in this relaxed position on their mat, slowly and quietly count to 1 and give them a treat. Continue to deliver the treat near their back hip to reinforce the more relaxed down position.
- Note we are not clicking or marking during this training to help encourage the relaxed chill behavior.
- Once your dog can reliably stay relaxed and quiet on their mat for a count of 1, increase the count to 2. Continue to feed your dog the treat by their hip.
- As your dog remains relaxed on their mat you can begin counting higher (increasing by 1 at a time).
- Once you are able to count higher than 10 begin varying the count both higher and lower from the last repetition so you aren’t always increasing the difficulty for your dog, sometimes it easier.