Let's talk about how we can evolve the current relationship with your dog and reinforcement

and evolve it into a strategic use of that reinforcement. So the first step is the dog loving food.

Some of you don't have a dog that loves food. You need to

create that love, but when you find one food the dog loves, then you're going to use a second food,

maybe give it to them first and give them the higher value food second. So we start with step number

one as we evolve your reinforcement strategy.

That is the dog's got to love food. Because if they don't love food, you can't grow brilliant

behaviors. Brilliant behaviors are grown from brilliant reinforcement. So number one, dog loves food.

That's where a lot of you are, that the dog won't do anything unless they see the food.

And so we've got to go from step one all the way down to step five. So step two is we've got to add some contingencies to them getting their food. That's where for me, one of the first

games I play with my dogs is the It's Your Choice game. I've talked about it a lot on the

podcast. I'm going to leave a link

in the show notes. Contingencies on that reinforcement means you might have some cookies in your

pocket. Now, if you play It's Your Choice, your dog will eventually ignore those cookies in the

pocket because they know coming up and bopping you and the hip is not going to get cookies.

Or you might be like me. I have like food bowls

around the house on the counters and they're there. If I see something amazing happening,

then I will mark it. I might say, good dog. I might give what we call a spotlight,

a location specific reinforcement marker, cook and I'll walk over and I'll give the dog a cookie.

So what would

that look like? Let's say, I don't like my dogs in the kitchen when I'm eating or I don't

like my dogs in the kitchen when I'm cooking. If I see a dog in a dog bed on the peripheral

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