Relationship Centered Training

That moment looks small, and it's easy to file under "nice trick." But what you're really watching is a dog making a choice to connect, and that choice is the ground floor of everything else. The Auto Check-In is where two-way communication begins: your dog learns they can ask you a question, and learns that you'll always have an answer worth hearing. From there, a real relationship has somewhere to grow.

This Relationship Centered Training technique also teaches something dogs are rarely given credit for being able to do. By checking in, a dog begins to notice their own state and to reach for you when things get big, rather than waiting to be managed through every moment. That's self-regulation, and it's the difference between a dog who is managed and a dog who is a genuine partner. 

Bonus: the Auto Check-in is easy to teach!

Once your dog knows the skill, the check-in becomes a kind of arousal-o-meter you can read in real time:

• Checks in easily → your dog is in the Think & Learn Zone, available to think and learn
• Slow or a little sticky → arousal is shifting, and it's time to change something
• Can't check in at all → your dog has left the TLZ, and you've moved from training time into a management moment

When you know where the dog is on the arousal scale, you make better decisions for and with your dog. Eliminate the frustration of trying to train a dog who can tell you clearly, “I am not in the TLZ.” Enjoy the benefits of a dog who has new options, including a way to ask you, “What do you think? Did you see that? What are we going to do about that?”