If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably know that everything I train dogs to do,

I do in the form of a game. We have a mantra around here. Work is play and play is work. Today,

I'm going to do a deep dive how you can minimize the time that you need to train by keeping

this mantra in the back of your mind. Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog. And today I'm

going to share with you how I end up training my dog

even when I'm not training my dog. I do that by looking for what's of value to my dog

every day around the house and how they get reinforced for the things that they love to do.

For example, Tater salad loves watermelon.

Like, he's crazy about watermelon. I would say that's one of his most favorite foods on the planet.

And he also loves laying in the sun. And so when he's laying in the sun and his most favorite

place to lay in the sun is on the

window bench right in the dining area. You can find him there most days for most of the day.

If the sun's out, that's where he's going to be lying. Unless somebody cuts watermelon,

which by the way happens a lot around this house because

Kim loves watermelon even more than Tater salad does. Anytime somebody starts cutting watermelon,

Tater's ears perk up. And he looks around to see if anyone's giving him watermelon,

which is not going to happen. But he does know that us humans love it when dogs

go to their hot zone, what we call dog beds around the house. So, he will leave his place in the

sun and he will dutifully park himself in a hot zone when the watermelon starts getting cut.

It just cracks me up because there is no way he would ever be in a hot zone if it wasn't for the fact

that somebody is cutting watermelons. It reminds me of a terrier that I used to have

Twister and I actually taught her to jump on a kitchen chair whenever my now past husband John

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