The concepts of On and Off can be taught quite quickly by marking the off and tossing a cookie. The dog leaves the Spot to go grab the cookie and then immediately returns to earn more cookies for doing the Spot again.

In this Video, Apryl Lea and Pan work on a Pedestal, or raised spot. The intent of the session is to Manufacture the Approach and Generalize the Handler position.

While it is true that dogs do not generalize as well as humans, generalization may be enhanced through training. And the dog surely won’t be able to generalize unless they practice. Generalizing the spot behavior is critical to being able to use the skill successfully in our daily interactions. We need to be able to put our dogs in many different spots, as it is not practical to always have ‘your’ Spot with us.

Behaviors can be broken down into many root concepts. Spot training offers us several active root concepts that we can teach our dogs that will come in handy in other situations.

Spot Training in 3 steps: shape interest, add value, release.

Reward placement is key in teaching a dog the Spot behavior. The reward must be delivered so that the dog can maintain position on the spot. Reward placement can be used to your advantage though…