Learning to settle and wait
These look like games and they are doing real behavior work. Several were built by named people for specific problems, and I have credited each one rather than passing them off as tips I came up with. To see what a given game is actually treating and who developed it, read games that double as behavior modification. This is also the section where working with a trainer earns its money.
A structured fifteen-day program that teaches a dog to hold a settled position while increasingly distracting things happen around them. Developed by veterinary behaviorist Dr. Karen Overall.
Shopping list
Tools
- A flat mat or bed, used for this and nothing else.
Food
- Small soft treats, delivered low and at the mat so your dog stays down.
Around the house
- A chair, and the free protocol PDF. Fifteen to twenty minutes a day.
How to do it
- Download the PDF. It's freely available and lists exact tasks for each day.
- Day one begins with your dog sitting or lying on the mat while you count to five, then take one step back, then sit down beside them, and so on. Each task is a few seconds long.
- Reward calmly and quietly after each task. Deliver the treat low, at the mat, so your dog stays down.
- Watch your dog, not the list. If they break position twice in a row, the step is too hard: repeat the previous one.
- Move to the next day's list only when your dog can complete the current one relaxed and loose. It is completely normal to spend a month on "Day 1."
- Stop before your dog gets restless. Ten minutes done well beats twenty done badly.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Day one. Seconds at a time, with you barely moving.
- Lvl 2
- Your movement added. Walking around them, stepping away and back.
- Lvl 3
- You leaving the room.
- Lvl 4
- Dropped objects and the doorbell.
Safety
No physical risk. The real risk is pushing too fast and teaching your dog that the mat means tension. If your dog is panting, whining or unable to settle, you're several steps ahead of where they are.
Teaching your dog that one specific mat means good things happen and nothing is required of them. The single most useful managementArranging the environment so an unwanted behavior cannot happen, rather than training the dog not to do it.Read more → behavior you can install.
Shopping list
Tools
- A raised training platform or a flat mat, used for nothing else. A platform gives clearer edges and plenty of dogs learn faster on one.
- A non-slip yoga mat underneath, if your floor is slick.
Food
- Small treats, fed several in a row while they hold the position.
How to do it
- Put the mat down. Say nothing. Wait.
- The moment your dog looks at, steps toward, or touches the mat, mark with "Yes" and toss a treat onto the mat.
- Repeat. Your dog will start deliberately going to the mat. Do not name it yet.
- When they're going reliably, start rewarding only when they lie down there. Feed several treats in a row, one at a time, while they stay down.
- Now add the cueA word, sound or signal that tells a dog which behavior will be reinforced right now.Read more →: say "Place" or "Mat" just before they head there.
- Build duration. Count to three, feed. Count to five, feed. Then add distance, one step at a time.
- Only add distractions once duration and distance are solid separately.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Any interaction with the mat, marked and paid on it.
- Lvl 2
- Only the down.
- Lvl 3
- Duration, counted in seconds.
- Lvl 4
- Distance, a step at a time.
- Lvl 5
- Distraction, and only once duration and distance are solid separately.
Safety
If using a raised platform, make sure it has a non-slip surface and that your dog can get on and off without jumping awkwardly. Not suitable for dogs on movement restriction unless cleared by your vet.
Rewarding your dog for settling on their own, so calm becomes a behavior they choose rather than one you have to ask for. Costs nothing and takes no dedicated time.
Shopping list
Food
- Something small enough to hand over ten to twenty times a day without it turning into dinner.
Around the house
- A small jar of treats in every room you actually spend time in.
How to do it
- Put a small jar of treats somewhere convenient in each room.
- Go about your day.
- Any time you notice your dog lying down, sighing, resting their chin, or otherwise doing nothing: quietly drop a treat between their paws.
- Say nothing. No praise, no eye contact, no "good boy." Excited praise wakes them up and undoes the point.
- Walk away.
- Do this ten to twenty times a day for a couple of weeks.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Any lying down at all.
- Lvl 2
- Only genuinely loose. Hip rolled over, chin down, a real sigh.
Safety
Count the treats into daily calories: this adds up quickly. Don't wake a sleeping dog to reward them.
You count out loud, and on "three" your dog gets a treat no matter what. From Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed pattern gamesLeslie McDevitt's short, repeating games with a fixed and predictable structure, such as counting to three and delivering food on three.Read more →. It creates predictability in unpredictable places.
Shopping list
Tools
- A treat pouch, so the count never stops while you dig in a pocket.
Food
- Soft training treats your dog can take fast, because the rhythm is the entire mechanism.
Around the house
- A quiet room to start in.
How to do it
- Standing still in your living room, say "One" and take a step. "Two," another step. "Three," and deliver a treat right at your dog's mouth.
- Repeat five to ten times. Same rhythm, same tone, every time.
- Your dog will start anticipating the treat on "three." That anticipation is the whole mechanism.
- Once the pattern is solid indoors, use it in your yard.
- Then use it somewhere mildly distracting: your driveway, a quiet parking lot.
- When something worrying appears in the distance, start counting. The pattern gives your dog something predictable to do instead of scanning.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Standing still, quiet room. If the pattern is not landing, build the count backwards from just Three.
- Lvl 2
- Walking, still indoors.
- Lvl 3
- Your own yard, then a driveway or a quiet lot.
- Lvl 4
- Somewhere real, started at distance rather than once they have locked on.
Safety
Only take this into a real environment once it's automatic at home. If your dog can't take the treat on "three," you are too close to whatever is worrying them. Increase distance rather than repeating.
Another McDevitt pattern game, for situations where you're stationary: waiting rooms, a bench, standing at a curb. Your dog looks up at you, gets a treat delivered to the ground, looks up again.
Shopping list
Tools
- A treat pouch.
Food
- Treats you can drop one at a time, right in front of them.
Around the house
- A spot to stand or sit still. A curb, a bench, a vet lobby.
How to do it
- Stand still. Wait for your dog to look up at you.
- The instant they do, say "Yes" and drop a treat on the ground right in front of them.
- They eat it, then look back up at you. That's the loop.
- Repeat. The rhythm becomes self-sustaining: look up, food down, look up.
- Practice in easy places until it runs on its own without you prompting anything.
- Use it when you need your dog to hold still and stay regulated: vet lobby, waiting for a gate, letting something pass.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Quiet room, and prompt the look-up.
- Lvl 2
- No prompting. The loop runs itself.
- Lvl 3
- Busier places, and longer holds between reps.
Safety
If the loop breaks down and your dog stops looking back up, you are too close to something. Move further away rather than pushing through it. A dog who will not take the food is telling you where they are, and that is information rather than stubbornness.
A two-level game that teaches a dog to look at a triggerAnything that reliably produces a strong emotional response in a particular dog.Read more → and then voluntarily look away: a coping skill Tong calls self-interruption. Created by Alice Tong, KPA CTP, LCSW, of Choose Positive Dog Training, published on clickertraining.com in July 2014, and built on Leslie McDevitt's Look At That. This is the closest thing to a standard protocol for leash reactivityReactive behavior that appears when a dog is on a leash and largely disappears when they are not.Read more →. The steps below follow Tong's original.
Arousal
Moderate. It involves a trigger, so it is not a low-arousal activity.
Shopping list
Tools
- A front-clip harness and a long line. No prong, choke or shock collar.
- A treat pouch, and a clicker or a marker wordA word taught to mean that whatever the dog just did has earned something, delivered immediately afterwards.Read more → you already use.
Food
- High-value food. Whatever actually beats the trigger.
Around the house
- A helper with a trigger you can direct, and far more distance than you think you need.
How to do it
- Set up at a distance where your dog notices the trigger but isn't reacting. That distance is often much larger than owners expect. Start further than you think.
- Level one: be quiet and still, and let your dog notice the trigger on their own. The moment they look at it, click or mark.
- When they turn back to you after the marker, feed. If they don't turn back, you're too close. Move further away and reset.
- Aim for three to five successful reps in a row at the same distance before moving on.
- Level two: let them notice the trigger, then wait one to five seconds to see if they look away on their own. If they're still fixated after five seconds, go back to level one.
- The instant they disengage, mark, then feed.
- After three to five successful reps, move one to five steps closer. If the trigger is moving or changing in intensity, drop back to level one at the new distance.
- Play in one to five minute bursts, then take a break.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Tong's level one. Marked for looking at it.
- Lvl 2
- Tong's level two. Marked for looking away by themselves, inside five seconds.
- Lvl 3
- Closer, one to five steps at a time, dropping back a level whenever the trigger changes.
Safety
This is the one on this list I most strongly recommend learning with a trainer. Set up badly, it rehearses reactivity instead of resolving it. Never do it with an uncontrolled trigger like a random dog on a street: you need a helper you can direct. If your dog reacts, you've gone too close. Leave calmly, and set up further away next time. Use a well-fitted harness and a secure leash.
Leslie McDevitt's original game, in which noticing a trigger becomes a cued, rewardable behavior rather than a threat. It is the game Engage Disengage was built on, and the two are often taught together.
Arousal
Moderate once real triggers are involved.
Shopping list
Tools
- A treat pouch, and a marker word.
Food
- Treats, paid the instant they glance.
Around the house
- Something completely boring to start on. A chair, a lamp, a cardboard box across the room.
How to do it
- Start with something completely boring. A chair, a lamp, a cardboard box across the room.
- Say "Look at that," and the moment your dog glances at it, mark with "Yes" and feed.
- Repeat until your dog hears the cue and cheerfully looks at the object.
- Move to slightly more interesting objects. A person standing still across a room. A parked car.
- Only when the game is fluent and happy on neutral things, take it to a mild version of a real trigger at a big distance.
- Keep sessions to a few minutes.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Boring objects. A chair, a lamp, a box.
- Lvl 2
- Mildly interesting. A person standing still, a parked car.
- Lvl 3
- A mild version of a real trigger, at a big distance.
Safety
Do not start this game on your dog's actual trigger. Building it on neutral objects first is what makes it work at all. For a genuinely reactive dog it is best learned with a trainer, for the same reason Engage Disengage is: set up too close and you rehearse the reaction instead of the alternative.
A long-line walk somewhere empty, where your dog sets the pace and route and you follow. No heeling, no training, no agenda. The term comes from trainer Sarah Stremming's work on decompressionA period of reduced activity and demand that gives a dog time to settle after a major change.Read more →.
Arousal
Calming, and the most valuable thing on this list for many reactive dogs.
Shopping list
Tools
- A fifteen to thirty foot long line, clipped to a harness and never to a collar. Never a retractable.
- A well-fitted harness, back-clip or Y-front.
Around the house
- Gloves, if your dog lunges. Rope burn is real.
- A genuinely quiet place, which in Houston usually means shortly after sunrise.
How to do it
- Pick your place carefully. An empty field, a wide unused lot, a quiet park at dawn, a large parking lot on a Sunday morning. In Houston, that usually means shortly after sunrise.
- Attach the long lineA leash of roughly fifteen to thirty feet, used to let a dog move and sniff freely while staying attached to the handler.Read more → to a harness, never a collar. Never a retractable leash.
- Hold the line loosely and let it run through your hand. Your job is to prevent tangling and keep the end from dragging into hazards.
- Let your dog choose where to go and how long to sniff. Do not call them, do not cue anything, do not hurry them.
- Twenty to forty minutes is plenty.
- If anything appears in the distance, calmly reel in and leave. Ending early is a success, not a failure.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Small familiar area, shorter line.
- Lvl 2
- Full length of line, same familiar place.
- Lvl 3
- Somewhere new.
Safety
Never attach a long line to a collar: a dog hitting the end at speed can injure their neck. Wear gloves if your dog lunges. Watch your footing and keep the line off your legs, because rope burn is real. Scan constantly for other dogs. In Houston, check pavement and ground temperature first, see Houston summer and extreme heat.
The cue for something on the ground your dog does not get to have. Built in stages so it holds the day it matters: a dropped pill, a chicken bone, whatever is on the sidewalk before you have seen it.
Arousal
Neutral. Quiet work, though a dog who badly wants the thing will find it frustrating, which is the part being trained.
Shopping list
Tools
- A treat pouch, so the hand that pays is never the hand being left.
- A long line once you take this outdoors.
Food
- Two tiers of food. Something ordinary to be left, kibble is ideal, and something better to pay with. Leaving it has to be the better deal every single time.
Around the house
- A few safe objects you can cover with a flat hand. A sock, keys, a tennis ball.
- A floor, and somewhere to sit for the early stages. You will be down there a while.
How to do it
- Sit on the floor with a piece of kibble inside a closed fist. Say "leave it" once.
- Let them nose it, lick it, paw at it. Say nothing else and do not repeat the cue. The fist stays shut.
- The moment they back off and genuinely disengage, mark it and pay from your other hand. Never the piece they were asked to leave.
- Same again with the hand open and flat. If they go for it, close it. That closing is the lesson. Your hand answers them, your voice does not.
- Swap the food for an object you can still cover, and run the same two stages. A sock, a set of keys.
- Put it on the floor under your hand. Uncover it by degrees, a finger at a time, until it is sitting in the open.
- Stand up. Block with a foot or step in front of it, then start backing away and adding distance.
- Pick the object up yourself when you are done. If they get to have it, it comes from your hand, never off the floor.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Closed fist, food, sitting on the floor with them.
- Lvl 2
- Open flat hand, food. It shuts the instant they reach.
- Lvl 3
- An object rather than food, still under your hand.
- Lvl 4
- On the floor, uncovering it a bit at a time.
- Lvl 5
- Standing up, blocking with a foot, and starting to add distance.
- Lvl 6
- Outdoors on a long line, with things you did not put there.
Safety
A dog who takes it anyway is not being defiant, they are telling you the rung is too hard. Go back one and make it easier rather than repeating the cue louder. Never let them get the item off the floor, even once, even as a treat at the end: a dog who learns that waiting long enough still produces the thing has learned to wait, which is the exact opposite of the point. If you want them to have it, pick it up and hand it to them. This is also not a recall off something already in their mouth, which is a different and more urgent problem worth a lesson rather than a game. Do not practice with anything genuinely dangerous: use a sock, not a pill.
Practice at the thing a lot of dogs never learn: coming back down. You wind them up on purpose, stop dead, and wait for a real settle rather than a performed one. Built for dogs who go up easily and stay there.
Arousal
Mildly amping, and it settles them afterwards. Winding the dog up is half the exercise, so it is not a quiet activity even though the point of it is calm.
Shopping list
Toys
- Whatever they actually want to play with. A tug, a favorite toy, or nothing at all: your own body and voice work fine to start, and are the easier version.
- A flirt pole once the easy version is solid. It is harder because it is worth more.
Food
- One calm treat to mark the settle. Not a handful, and not delivered with excitement.
Around the house
- Room to move, and a surface they can lie down on.
How to do it
- Get them going. Body language, your voice, a tug, whatever gets them properly invested. Thirty seconds or so is plenty.
- Stop dead, with no warning. Stand still. No eye contact, no talking, no touching. You are removing every part of what was paying for the excitement.
- Expect them to try harder before they give up. Pacing, barking, pawing, grabbing at you. This is the hardest part and it is where most people fold.
- Answer none of it. "No" is still attention, and for a dog soliciting you it still pays.
- Wait for the real thing. A deep audible breath, often with the nostrils flaring. The mouth closing, from panting to relaxed. Looking away from you, or at something else entirely.
- A dog sitting and staring at you has not settled, they are waiting for you to start again. Do not pay that.
- When the settle arrives, mark it calmly and pay calmly. A quiet "yes" and one treat, not a party.
- Pause, then either go again or stop for the day. Five or six rounds is a session.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Just you. Your body and your voice, nothing else in your hands.
- Lvl 2
- A toy or a tug, which is worth more and harder to walk away from.
- Lvl 3
- A flirt pole, the hardest version, once the settle is reliable without one.
Safety
This game makes a dog frustrated on purpose, which is why the session is capped rather than run until it works. Five or six rounds. If they are not settling, the stimulation was too high for where they are today: stop, do something else, and come back later starting lower. Pushing on past that point teaches them that the frustration does not end, which is the opposite of the lesson. Everyone in the house has to play it the same way. One person ignoring the pawing while another answers it means the dog keeps trying, because sometimes it works. You may see the try-harder phase and you may not, and a dog who simply settles without one has not skipped a step.
For a dog who will not take food from your hand. The countdown does the work and the treat lands behind your heel, so your hands stay out of it entirely. Built on Leslie McDevitt's 1-2-3 pattern game.
Learn these first
- A marker word that always pays. The count runs on the same promise a marker runs on, and it is easier for a dog who already knows that a word can mean food is coming.
- Eating off the floor, in that room, on that day. A dog who has only ever eaten from a bowl or a hand may not think to look down when food lands. Scatter feeding sorts this out in a couple of days.
- Find It, which teaches your dog that food on the ground is worth crossing the room for. Everything here depends on that being true.
- The 1-2-3 Game if your dog is perfectly happy taking food from your hand. Hand delivery is the normal way to run it, that version is simpler, and you should use it instead. This one is the special case, for the dogs who will not take from a hand.
Shopping list
Tools
- A treat pouch, so the count never stops while you dig in a pocket.
Food
- Soft training treats your dog can eat off the floor in one go. Anything they have to hunt for breaks the rhythm, and the rhythm is the mechanism.
- Something better for outdoors than what you use in the kitchen. What a dog eats happily at home and what they will take with something worrying them are two different lists.
Around the house
- A quiet room to start in, and a hallway for the walking version.
How to do it
- Count out a small handful of treats before you start, so you are not digging for one mid-round.
- Stand still in a quiet room with your hands at your sides. Not held out, not in front of you, not reaching. Your hands take no part in this.
- Say "One. Two. Three." in a flat, even rhythm, and on "Three" drop one treat on the floor between your feet. One, not a handful.
- Let your dog eat it and look back up before you start the next round. That look up is the reset. Waiting for it is what keeps the count meaning something.
- Ten to fifteen rounds. Same rhythm, same tone, every single time. Do not speed up and do not get louder.
- You will know it is working when their eyes drop to the floor on "Two." Your dog has worked out what is coming and gone looking for it early.
- Now start walking, slowly, counting at the same pace. On "Three" the treat goes on the floor behind your heel while you keep walking forward.
- Your dog has to turn back and step into the space behind you to get it. That turn is the entire point. You have moved them off something and away from it without touching them, without calling them, and without using your hands.
- Take it to the hallway, then the yard, then the driveway. Only move up when the last place was easy.
- Outdoors, start counting before your dog locks on, not after. Once they are staring, you are late, and the count becomes one more thing happening at them.
Change it up
- Lvl 1
- Standing still in a quiet room, treat between your feet. If the count is not landing at all, build it backwards from just "Three."
- Lvl 2
- Same thing, walking, treat behind your heel.
- Lvl 3
- Your own yard, then a driveway or a quiet parking lot.
- Lvl 4
- Somewhere real, started at a distance, before anything has your dog's attention.
- Lvl 5
- Where this goes next: once the turn behind your heel is automatic, the same movement scales up into an emergency U-turn. That is its own skill and it gets its own session.
Safety
If your dog will not take the food off the floor, you are too close to whatever is worrying them. Add distance rather than running the count again. A dog who has stopped eating has stopped learning, and the pattern spends itself for nothing. Never say "Three" without a treat landing. The whole thing runs on the count being a promise. A count that stops predicting food stops working, and the pairing has to be rebuilt before you can lean on it again. If you say it at the wrong moment, pay it anyway and start the next round clean.
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