The Learn to Earn Program

The idea of “learn to earn” is to change the relationship between you and your dog, so that he or she learns you are in control, but without using force or aggression. To do this you need to be in control of all things that are important to your dog, such as food, toys and your attention. Your attention is very important to your dog as dogs are social animals and they soon learn how to get your attention. The learn to earn programme gives your dog boundaries and so reduces its expectation of getting what he/she wants when he/she wants it.

Food

Ask your dog to sit/down/stay/shake paws or any command they know before you give them their food. The important thing is the dog does something for you before you do something for them.

Toys

Like the food, the dog’s toys belong to you, the pack leader. Keep his/her toys in a ‘toy box’ so you have control over their use. Just by being in control of a ‘vital’ resource like the toy box, will increase your status in the eyes of your dog. You can select toys to play with when you wish and put them away when you have finished. Also, make sure you end playtime and not your dog.

Your attention

This is the resource most people forget to control and is often the the resource the dog wants most. You should decide when you want to interact with your dog and not the other way round. There are no rules on how often you should do this, but it is important that you start and finish the interaction. e.g. when your dog is quiet, call them to you for a cuddle/game and give lots of praise. If you see the dog tiring of your attention, end the session so the dog is not the one to walk away.

If your dog comes to you for attention at other times, they must be ignored, including eye contact. Although it is nice that your dog comes to say hello, for dogs that are controlling their owners, it is important that such behaviour is ignored. To start with, the dog will probably try harder to get your attention-he/she has always had a response from you and when he doesn’t get it will try every “attention seeking” behaviour in the book. This is very hard to ignore, but must be done to get the message through. Once they have given up, wait 5 minutes then call them back and give lots of praise and cuddles.


Rules of the learn to earn program

1. Toys and food belong to you. Ensure you are in control of both of these resources.
2. Your dog must say “please” ie sit/down/paw to ask for any of these resources
3. Humans start and finish all interactions
4. Humans ignore all doggy attempts to start/prolong interactions

Also remember to reward appropriate behaviours and ignore inappropriate ones. Therefore behaviours you want will become more frequent and those you don’t will decrease in frequency.

Good luck