Transform Your Dog's Behavior with 1-800 Train My Dog

The first step to make the YES meaningful for your dog is charging the word YES (some people call it loading the word YES).

The goal is to create an association in your dog's brain between the word YES and a treat. This association strengthens quickly during the charging process.

Loading/charging the word YES is a quick and simple process. 

· Shut yourself and your dog in a quiet room together. Ensure you have a place to sit and a table to put a small container of treats on. 

· Say YES and IMMEDIATELY treat the dog. 

· Say YES and treat, do this continually for 2 minutes. As your progress occasionally wait until the dog loses interest and repeat. At this stage, you do not want him to associate the YES & treat with his actions or with any specific pattern in time. You are only working on the the link between the word YES and the treat.

· Say YES and treat about 50 times in that 2-minute span, then take a break. 

· Wait at least two hours and repeat the session. Once your dog's head starts to snap back to you in expectation when you say YES, you have successfully charged the word! This may take several sessions, but every dog is different.

You will find that your dog quickly starts to anticipate YES with a reward to come. 

Eventually when you are using the YES to shape behaviors your timing will be of the utmost importance! If you are teaching a dog to retrieve a ball to your hand and you say YES as the ball comes out of his mouth, you are training your dog to spit the ball! That is how precise of a tool this is.