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Maintaining a strong connection with your dog during training is essential for success, but even the best-behaved dogs can lose focus. Sometimes, the reasons are obvious—a loud noise or a tempting scent—but other times, disconnection feels like a mystery. No matter the cause, identifying why your dog is disengaging is the first step toward finding a solution.

Throughout this blog, we'll explore the most common reasons dogs disconnect and actionable strategies to address each issue. These topics will be explored in my upcoming class, Connect and Engage with Games: Build Focus for Sports Dogs. Through the class, we'll dive even deeper into these challenges, equipping you with games and tools to keep your dog engaged and focused. 

The AKC Rally Master Class brings exciting challenges, testing the handler and dog with intricate maneuvers, distractions, and complex behaviors. For many teams, the key to success is building the dog's confidence to handle the complexity and maintain focus in the ring. A confident dog is a focused and eager teammate, ready to tackle every sign enthusiastically. Let's explore how to build and sustain that confidence in your dog. 

You've likely heard the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and it couldn't be truer when it comes to preventing FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in dogs! Once a dog develops strong feelings about being left out—whether it's during training or playtime—it can become challenging to manage.

Whether you're raising a young puppy or addressing FOMO with an older dog, the key to success is consistency. You can't expect progress if you address FOMO inconsistently while allowing barking and restless behavior at other times. Follow these practical tips to keep your dog content and anxiety-free.

In rally obedience, the "around" behavior is one of the most frequently used skills, second only to heeling. It is most commonly seen in the right finish, but many other signs also incorporate the dog circling the handler. Teaching around as a solid behavior will be a valuable investment as you and your dog progress through the rally levels.

When competing in higher-level events, having a speedy and reliable around behavior is crucial. Dogs that circle their handlers slowly lose precious time on this one move. By incorporating games and exercises that focus on speeding up your dog's around, you can enhance their performance in the ring.

Effective dog training techniques for success are all about building your dog's confidence through small victories. When your dog experiences consistent success, they become more motivated, eager to learn, and confident. Achieving these small wins makes training feel rewarding for both you and your dog. Our goal should always be to train in a way that sets our dogs up for success and ensures they know how to "win" during each session.

While perfection isn't always possible, rehearsing correct behaviors as often as we can is key to developing a solid foundation. By learning to read your dog's abilities and responding to them, you can ensure each training session is a productive one.

Rally is a fun activity that is an excellent introduction to other dog sports. Dog sports are not only a fantastic way to bond with your furry friend but also to engage their minds and bodies in meaningful activities. Among the various dog sports available, rally stands out as an excellent introductory sport for several compelling reasons. Whether you're new to dog sports, looking for something fun to do with your dog, or trying to expand your dog's skills, rally can pave the way for a rewarding journey into other disciplines.

For many dogs, stillness is a challenging concept to grasp. Especially in sports-bred dogs, which are highly motivated by movement, training methods often focus on encouraging and rewarding action. As a result, teaching stay behaviors can be more difficult. However, introducing the concept of stillness can help your dog remain calm, composed, and focused in various situations, benefiting high-energy or anxious dogs in particular.

Often times, the hardest step in heeling is that first one. There are so many fun ways to start moving forward! Stop heeling from a boring sit and start motivating your dog!

In AKC (American Kennel Club) rally, each sign that requires you to walk around your dog also includes a pause when you get back to heel position. So, what exactly is a pause?

A pause is a complete stop of forward motion with your feet together. Pauses can be fairly quick, but it should be obvious that you paused in heel position. I recommend counting to two in your head to ensure that there's no question about your pause.

Forgetting to pause after walking around your dog is one of the more common handler errors in AKC rally. Unfortunately, it's a big error that will cost you and your dog 10 points for an incorrectly performed sign. It's an easy thing to forget as you are rushing through the course!

Let's look at the signs that require you to pause in heel!

Chin rests are useful for so many things! It's one of my favorite behaviors to teach. I use chin rests for obedience behaviors, such as teaching a close front and getting a quiet hold, but it's also useful for cooperative care, consent, and start button behaviors. In addition, chin rests help the dog be still, so it's helpful to settle the dog and lower arousal.

Position changes are a skill needed in both rally and obedience. Taking the time to teach a good foundation will make the more advanced position changes much easier. In this blog, I'm working with Excel, who wasn't quite two when I videoed these sessions.

Excel is a dog who finds movement very reinforcing, and therefore, stillness is difficult. For this reason, I spend a lot of time reinforcing him for doing nothing. This helps with anticipation and also helps him keep his body quiet and still. If your dog is like Excel, reinforce for waiting for the next cue and stillness even more than you reward the movement behaviors.

Why is it that dogs often disconnect after reinforcement? Have you ever noticed that your dog checks out after he or she has received a reward? This is a pretty common problem, and it can be exhausting to keep your dog in the game. So, why do dogs disconnect after reinforcement?

Teaching your dog advanced commands can be a rewarding experience, and one valuable skill for rally is lateral movement in front of you. This blog post will explore a training approach involving mats or props to guide your dog through this challenging but achievable behavior.

Dogs like us, dogs can experience frustration when they are not part of the action. This is commonly referred to as FOMO (fear of missing out).

Rally is a fun and captivating dog sport that requires not only obedience skills but also excellent memory recall abilities. Not only do you as a handler need to remember how to properly execute the signs, but remembering the rally course is essential for seamless performance and achieving top scores. In this blog post, we will explore practical strategies to help you improve your memory and successfully remember rally courses. Let's dive in and unleash your memory power!

Mastering side steps in rally can be a source of immense joy for both the participant and the audience. While teaching a proficient side step may pose some challenges, the effort invested is worthwhile.

Staying in heel position is a fundamental behavior in rally and obedience training. To ensure your dog maintains heel position throughout a course, building value and enthusiasm for being in that position is essential. In this blog post, we'll explore engaging games to increase your dog's excitement and success by finding and staying in the heel position. You'll enjoy happier and more successful performances by teaching your dog these games!

Generalization is a crucial aspect of dog training that enables dogs to apply learned behaviors in various situations. When teaching a new behavior, the environment and cues significantly shape the dog's response. However, if the cues are too closely associated with specific contexts, the dog may need help generalizing the behavior. In this blog post, we will explore the concept of generalization and provide practical tips on teaching dogs to respond to cues regardless of the environment or contextual cues. 

Is precision important to you in rally or obedience? It's true, most of us would like our dogs to be precise and accurate! Sometimes, however, the way we go about achieving that goal of precise behaviors can affect the dog's attitude. So how can we get both precise behaviors and happy dogs?

Location specific reinforcement cues are extremely helpful for improving position while heeling. Because where you deliver the treats affects where the dog wants to be, you can use that to your advantage for whatever tendencies your dog might have.

Reinforcement cues tell the dog that he or she is right. Location-specific reinforcement cues take that a step farther by delivering the reward in a specific way or area, therefore affecting how the dog might perform the behavior in future repetitions. Because dogs are very efficient creatures, they will quickly figure out how to most effectively get the treat. Therefore, they tend to gravitate towards where the treat comes from. If we can be strategic about reward placement, we can affect the tendencies of the dog over time.

Let's look at some common location-specific reward markers in heeling.