If you've been following my most recent podcast episodes, you will know I'm talking about

how we train dogs, how I train my own dogs and how I train my students' dogs. And one of

the big part of that training is the use of targets. And that prompted a question from

many of you, and I'm going to answer it tonight. Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog.

The question that people ask when I say I don't use food lures, I use targets,

I can ask, well, how do you fade the targets? And I realize that may not be innate. And so,

I'm going to do a deep dive into that. In this podcast episode, I'm going to include things like

what is and isn't a true target. Why targets

work so darn well. I'm going to share with you the three questions I would strongly

recommend you ask yourself before you attempt to fade a target and, of course, I'm going to

teach you how I fade targets. So, let's get started.

First of all, what's the difference between a food lure and a target? Well, Susan, let's say I want

my dog to heal. I'll put a cookie right on my hip and he learns that's a position that I want

him to heal at. Or if I want him to do a dog walk, contacted agility, I'll take a little margarine lid and I'll

put a cookie on that and he knows to go right to that margarine lid or if I wanted him to

to like spin, I would just put a cookie on his nose and put it in a little circle and pretty

quickly he would follow that cookie. So, those are not targets. Those are lures. The difference between a target

and the lure is the lure is the dog's ultimate reinforcement. So, a primary reinforcement like

food makes a great lure if the dog wants the food that you're luring with. Also, a secondary reinforcer that the dog

absolutely loves. But it's a secondary reinforcer because they've learned to love it, like dogs

who might be crazy about a tennis ball. Now, why are those lures and not targets? Because

the power, the value that the dog has for the food

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