Passive training

Passive training.... building the ‘off switch’ and calm on command

For most folks, dog training means a physically active session where the dog is moving quickly, doing fast and fancy obedience maneuvers or marching around a room with a group of similarly over excited pups. And while these sorts of formats definitely have their place, they are not beneficial to an over excited dog. They would simply add more excitement and stress to a rowdy dog whose cup of excitement is already overflowing. So what kind of training does a rowdy and over excited dog need?
Training to learn how to be calm... we call this passive training. This is the kind of training where the dogs’ mindset is most important and all that fancy obedience stuff doesn’t matter. During passive training the dog learns how to ‘turn off’ on command when they are sent to ‘Place’ (which is an object like a cot or dog bed) because they have been patterned over and over and over to do so. It takes a lot of work to maintain the skills for calm on command which is why having the dogs practice the place command every day is so very import to their mindset. If the dog spends all his time pacing, jumping, and being rowdy until he passes out then he becomes an expert at over excitement... but if a dog consistently practices calm on command daily then we can replace the excitement with this new and calmer mindset.