[Episode 36]

6 Tips to Build Your Dog’s Confidence 

How do you build your dog’s confidence? 

I saw a video of a trainer “building” her dog’s confidence. I think this is a good trainer and I like her methodology, but I would NEVER recommend what she was doing in the video. She was tugging on a toy with her dog with one hand, while she had shipping paper in the other hand and she was making noise and hitting it on her leg next to her dog’s head while she was tugging. Presumably, she was making noise with a foreign object next to her dog’s head. In other words, creating a scary situation while her dog has fun. Her caption was about building confidence. 

I understand that building your dog’s confidence is important, but I wouldn’t recommend that exercise for any of my clients that have a shy dog or a dog that needs to build his confidence. I don’t think I would recommend that exercise for a dog that is confident already.  

When I watch that video I see a dog trainer using her own dog, who she’s probably been training for years and years. She’s spent a long time building his confidence and knew that he would be fine with that particular exercise that she did. I like that she’s making videos to help dog owners BUT you need to watch the videos you see on social media with a grain of salt. What you see in a dog trainer’s video may not be appropriate for your dog. The dog in this video may have been having fun but there is no guarantee that your dog will enjoy this exercise. In fact, I’m willing to bet that there are a large number of dogs that won’t like this exercise. 

This is one of the main reasons why you don’t see a lot of videos with my dogs on my feed. I’ve been working with my dogs for over 10 years. There’s more value in sharing my clients’ dogs that are in the process of learning than in sharing what my own dogs can do. 

I use 4 simple exercises to build a dog’s confidence. I call them the Foundation Behaviors. There’s one additional exercise that’s in the Barkaholics online program. This is Milo’s confidence exercise. He gets anxious outside, can you tell? Now imagine what would happen if his mom did this exercise every day for the next week or two. Would he get more anxious or less?

The key to building your dog’s confidence Is keeping it simple without a ton of props, commands, or cues. When your dog knows what to do, without you telling him, then he will become confident. 

6 Tips to Building Your Dog’s Confidence

1. Brain Games

Interactive food toys and brain games help your dog solve a problem. The problem is trying to figure out, on their own, how to get the yummy food out of the ball. This help them become better problem solves which builds their confidence. This also provides mental enrichment and will tire your dog out. Check out our Amazon Store for our favorite brain games.

2. Foundation behaviors

If you built your house and a shaky foundation, it wouldn’t stand if a story came, right? You need to start by building a strong foundation with your dog. I use 3 – 4 special exercises that I call Foundation Behaviors. These short and simple exercises are in our online program, The Dog Academy and Barkaholics. These simple exercises will boost your dog’s confidence AND build trust. 

3. Know how your dog communicates

Understanding dog body language is one of the most important aspects to building your dog’s confidence. How do you know how he’s feeling if you don’t speak his language? Dog’s communicate using their body language. Most dog owners make the mistake of waiting until their dog is barking, lunging, biting, snapping or growling, which is too late. Your dog will give you several over signs that he’s worried. Learn them so that you know what is working and what is making it worse. 

4. Don’t fall for over-the-top stuff

Keep it simple. Here are some ways that won’t build your dog’s confidence:

• Rustling packing papers in your dog’s ear
• Having your dog sit on a fire hydrant
• Jumping on high pillars, tables, or benches. 
• What builds confidence – when your dog knows what to do without you asking, giving a cue or command.

5. Teach him to look at objects (dogs, people, etc) and be calm

Most dog owners want a calm dog. There’s a great exercise I do with my one-on-one clients that works great. It teaches over-excited dogs to be calm and fearful dogs to be relaxed when around a trigger. It’s great for reactive dogs, shy dogs, and overly exuberant dogs. This exercise in The Dog Academy is called Focus Around Distractions. It’s also in the Barkaholics Program. 

6. Notices what she’s worried about and go slow

 You don’t have to change your dog in 5 minutes. Go slow when he’s nervous or unsure and come back to it later on if needed.