I'm a big fan of adding distance as one of the last variables.

For all the reasons that I just outlined, it's a lot more efficient to teach the behavior and get it clean and solid, get a clean loop when you're pretty close because you can keep the whole thing a lot tighter.

And so you have more control and you can get in more reinforced reps.

That's what creates the learning.

So first, we want a clean unit of behavior, that clean loop.

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Most of the time, most behaviors are easier

to teach with your dog close to you. I was going to say all or almost all, but I get really

uncomfortable using words like all or never in dog training, because dogs are real good at teaching

you to be cautious with absolutes. But let's say, let's say most. Most behaviors are easier to

teach with your dog close to you. When

your dog's closer to you, you can reinforce more quickly. You have more control over what happens.

Having less distance between you and your dog means there's just an overall shorter feedback loop. So you can get in more reps in the same amount of time for efficient training.

So if you're trying to build a clean, solid behavior, you want to start

close. I think we generally agree on that. But whether for everyday life skills or for performance

behaviors, there are some situations where we find ourselves needing to add a little distance to the

behavior, to teach the dog to perform the behavior or respond to a cue further and further

away from you. This comes up. This is actually

something that's fresh in my mind right now. I've reached a stage with rugby where I need to start

adding distance to some of our performance behaviors, some of our behaviors that we need for obedience

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