Our training philosophy is based on scientifically proven laws of learning. Pawlow and Skinner discovered long ago how dogs learn. We take advantage of their studies today.

Firstly, we teach desired behaviors by communicating properly with the animal, through a device that is called "clicker". Keep in mind that behaviors that are rewarded will most likely be repeated. Behaviors that are not rewarded, will most likely not reoccur, well, unless they are self reinforcing!?

The clicker will help us to clearly communicate or "mark" the behavior that we want to be rewarded. As dogs do not speak our language, timing for reward delivery is very crucial. A dog could do several different things by the time we say "good boy", so rewarding him for a behavior detail for example needs a special identifier.

"Click" is what our teaching phase is based on, after the dog has been taught that "click", in fact, means "reward is forthcoming" for what I did when I heard the "click".

Naturally, behaviors we reinforce (pay for or reward), will occur more often than the behaviors that are not reinforced. During the teaching phase, we will do exactly that: rewarding behaviors of the dog that WE desire. The behaviors we do not like are just ignored, until a habit of displaying the right behavior is established. The more of the good behaviors we establish and cultivate, the less time and desire is there to display undesired behaviors.

Secondly, we train the desired behaviors to appear reliably on a signal under different distractions. In the training phase, the desired behavior will be rewarded but undesirable behavior will be either negatively punished (the reward will be withheld-negative punishment) or positively punished (it will be uncomfortable, if the wrong behavior is performed- positive punishment).

Following and teaching our philosophy to others, we have produced very well-performing dogs for the sport of Schutzhund, police work and well-functioning pets.

Also see click for action- feed for position