Applying Plenty in Life is Free with Seven - Part 7 of Training Time!

If you have not read Plenty in Life is Free then you are missing out!  Kathy Sdao is easy to follow and what she offers in the book is pretty amazing that centers around building a trusting and loving relationship with your dog. This is in my top tier of training books! 

 

I've been applying Kathy's protocol of SMARTx50 with Seven and I've seen amazing results.    SMART stands for See Mark and Reward Training.  Kathy states " These three components - seeing good behavior, marking good behavior (often with a click or a "yes") and rewarding good behavior - are the core competencies of successful training" .  She goes on to say:  "We make efforts to reinforce behaviors we like so those behaviors become more frequent, more intense and longer."

 

SMART training is pretty easy to follow - the human pays attention to what behavior the dog is doing and if you like it mark it and reward it.  If you are wondering what the 50 is about - well the human is tasked with observing 50 behaviors a day that you like and marking those with a food reward!  You may think that your dog doesn't do 50 things a day that you can mark and you are wrong!  Remember you are marking the behavior you like - this could be your dog quietly lying down, could be that your dog comes over to you for a pet, could be that your dog isn't barking - the list is endless once you start observing your dog!

 

 

Seven is busy terrier who is ready for whatever is next!  This can get exhausting and SMARTx50 gave us the opportunity to reinforce the times when Seven is calm and relaxed.  As the weeks have gone on, we are seeing more and more of this calm/relaxed behavior thanks to SMARTx50 - I love this training protocol!

Here are some times when Seven is doing the behavior we are frequently reinforcing! 



Resting quietly

 

Calmly making eye contact

Getting a mark and reward for practicing calm!

 

 

 

 

Waiting quietly while I'm on the computer



And back to quietly resting while the humans are busy with other things



Quietly & calmly watching the planes outside

 

 And of course being just way to dang cute! 

 

This is one of my favorite video's of Seven.

 

 

I strongly encourage folks to read Plenty in Life is Free!  It's chalked full of excellent information, easy to follow and  a heartwarming book!