Capturing a Behavior

Training your new Yorkshire Terrier, Cavachon or Yorkie Mix puppy can be done in many different ways.

One of these ways is by capturing a behavior that you are happy with.  A key part of this strategy is to always have treats available to give your puppy.

To capture a behavior you have to be paying close attention to your puppy.  When your puppy does something that you approve of you “capture” this behavior by saying “good girl” or “good boy” and giving your puppy a treat.  They will begin to associate an appropriate behavior with receiving a treat.  As you puppy gets used to performing a particular behavior you can give them different treats such as a pat on the head and eventually a “good girl” or “good boy” will be enough praise.

I purchased my dog, Lizzie, when she was five months old.  She was trained to be a show dog but her adult teeth came in crooked so she was put up for sale.  A show dog is taught not to sit.  Of course we wanted Lizzie to sit and we needed a strategy to do this.

We decided to try to capture the behavior of sitting.  I kept treats with me at all times and Lizzie would “stand” in front of me as she was taught to do.  Eventually she sat down.  She immediately received a treat.  It got to the point where Lizzie would sit, I would give her a treat and she would walk around the coffee table and sit again.  She quickly learned that if she would sit, she would receive a treat.  We used this same technique after she learned to sit to teach her to lie down. 

The technique of capturing a behavior worked for us and I’m sure it can work for you as well.