Treat parties for new commands and commands you struggle with are great! Nothing wrong with extra treats for something tough, I often make one little treat last forever (great for stays especially) mixing all those tactics together is great, and it’s good to keep me guessing. For old things I also move into treating every 2-4 times instead of every time, the. Two in a row, then skip a few, etc… When you are getting ready for the good citizen for example, you can’t have treats, so it’s good to get to that point without treats. And I see no problem with giving lots of high value treats for learning things, I don’t only pull them out a couple times in a session.
Unless any of you are planning on coming to Colorado for dog training, you aren’t clients that would normally pay me, so I have no problems sharing 🙂 ( I do however get loads of people mooching for free advice, mostly I don’t care but if it’s intensive, I’ll tell them to setup an appointment. The worst is people who call me about dog training that I don’t know from Adam, and ask me a million questions hoping for free answers, grr…) anyhow, off topic, you all are my internet dog friends so no worries.
Counter conditioning is quite simple, and exactly what it sounds like. Helping your dog not be afraid or anxious in a situation that puts them over threshold, causes fear, or is otherwise a hard position for them to be in. I do this the exact opposite way of what you see the dog whisperer do on tv ;-). I’ll use my sisters Westie for a really basic example with cars. He was terrified of them (can’t blame that eh?) but it was to the point where he would yank, bark, go crazy- unsafe really. So every time a car drove by, we worked on focusing on her, making her a pez dispenser, hand out as many treats as he would take, and reward when the car was gone. Clickers help with this as well. Eventually he got to the point where he could sit and focus without treats, and then click and treat party. Now she doesn’t even have to stop walking, but from time to time gives him a treat anyway. This tactic can be used for a lot of different counter conditioning, and I really like the clicker and having some shaping skills worked in for a lot of it as well
