My goal when you come to me for a consult is to send you away with the skills and exercises to improve your dog’s fitness, happinest and condition. So why is it that I use treats and suggest you do target training. Or even discuss the different ways that we can train?

The best results will always occur when your pet is a happy and active participent in the rehabilitation or conditioning process. I often use luring to encourage the animal onto equipment and maintain form. This is not bribery, it is a reward for the effort they are putting in. Just as you expect to be paid for the work that you do, so does your pet.

To get finer improvements we may also start using other techniques, particularly for dogs where we are aiming to improve their already amazing form for competition. 

I use rewards to set up a communication pathway between you and your pet. As they perform the desired behaviour they get paid. If they do not perform the behaviour then they miss out on their payment. They quickly decide what activities they find more rewarding, and they will start offering those behavours more often. 

This is even more important when we are re-teaching muscle patterns for neurological patients. We might even start with rewarding effort rather than success to encourage a positive frame of mind. If there is any hope at all for recovery we must have the brain sending the correct signals to the rest of the body, which we can reinforce with rewards. 

If you’d like to chat more about this, or anything else fitness and rehab related, call me on send me an email.