Proofing

Now that we have been working on our stays it’s time to work on proofing them. Proofing means to systematically add little challenges to see how well our dog can stay in different circumstances. When proofing we always want to keep our dogs mostly successful so we don’t damage their confidence by testing more than they are ready for. So if your dog makes a mistake two times in a row be sure to make the next one easier so they can succeed.

I suggest starting first with a little “leave it” on the ground work which you can find more details in Foundations module 4.

Then we can work on setting our rewards down. Having the treats we will reward a stay for on the ground creates a very nice combo of both proofing and reinforcement. You can see more details on this on Module 5

More proofing ideas:

• Stay while you sit in a chair

• Stay while you tie your shoe

• Stay while you set a toy down

• Stay while you roll a ball

• Stay while you hop

• Stay while you bounce a ball

• Stay wearing bunny ears ;)

• Stay while you place out multiple treats

• Stay while you drop many treats

Some proofing ideas for walking on leash if you have gotten the walk with you in the house or in your yard

• Walking past their favorite toy

• Walking past an open bag of treats

• Walking past treat containers

• Walking past food on the ground

• Walking around their toys

• Walking around food on the ground

Proofing your place

• Send to place with favorite toy near place

• Send past favorite toys

• Send past open bags of food

• Sends past food on ground

• Stay on place while you do the above stay proofing games

We will work on some of these as a group in this weeks group training!