All dogs regardless of breed are 98% wolf. Traditional training is addressing the 2% domestic dog and not the natural 98% canine.
For the survival of the individual every dog must know who their higher-ranking dog is and all those above them. A higher-ranking dog does not worry about whether or not the lower ranking dog has their attention or not, they are worried about focusing on their higher-ranking dog because that is how they will eat and that is the most important thing. As they watch their higher-ranking dog, they are also looking for changes in that dog’s ability to mentally and physically enforce rules, boundaries, and limitations. Any failure to do so means a chance to move up in the hierarchy.
A dog’s world is based on strict order. The human world is based on chaos. People are very inconsistent with everything they do. Because of this, few dogs ever know their rules, boundaries, and limitations. It’s like when a kid does something and gets grounded, after a few days the parent loses interest in enforcing the consequences and soon they disappear.
The one canine commodity that is always in play is space, whether you are still or moving either you are sharing your space with your dog, or they are sharing their space with you.
Would you let your kid-
Pull you down the street towards whatever they wanted, how about in a store?
Dash in front of you in or out of a door or up and down a flight of stairs?
Jump up on people?
Push their way in front of you when answering the door?
Push you out of your bed?
Climb all over you when you are on the couch watching TV?
If you answered “no” then why do people allow it with their dogs? These are all the way that dogs manipulate space to show dominance. They are asking questions in their language of eye contact, movement, and touch. And humans answer by talking to them, usually with lots of emotion.
Once you learn to protect your space like a higher-ranking dog, many other problem behaviors take care of themselves. If not, the dog will literally walk all over you and other people. Dogs and kids alike are like blind man with his hands out in front of him, until he hits something he does not know where to stop. If he is consistently stopped at the same place, he will be conditioned to know where to stop to avoid walking into the wall.
Once the dog sees you as a higher-ranking dog, they will always be looking out for what you will tolerate today that you did not do yesterday, that means weakness. By using the above examples consistently, the dog becomes calm and relaxed in their higher-ranking dog. This is what we call passive training. Whether you are working with your dog or not you are passively training them. Being mindful of what you are showing them changes things.
Here at MCS we are redefining what obedience means, to us it is not calling your dog to get their attention and then giving them a command do something like heel, sit, down, stay, or come. It is about your dog constantly focusing on you as a higher-ranking dog no matter what the conditions are in the environment. We develop a dog that is in neutral instead of drive. When you move the dog moves, when you stop, they stop. Parents including me always say to the kids “why do I have to constantly tell you to do what you know you are supposed to do”, “I should not have to say anything”. That is how I feel about dogs. Focused Based Canine Training is about conditioning the dog to read the handler by focusing on them instead of constantly trying to get their attention with treats and talking.
This is how we are able to reduce traditional dog training time by 90%. We show you the system that we have used to train over 3000 dogs since 2017 with over 85% only needing us for an hour. It is ever better with packs because other dogs will focus on whoever another dog in their pack is focusing on. That is how a pack works. We commonly train 2-3 dogs in one hour. Focus Based Canine Training is the calmest, easiest, fastest, and most efficient way to train dogs.