This easy activity is about teaching your dog to relax. Yes, you can train “relaxation.” We have recommended Karen Overall’s Relaxation Protocol 15-day project for years. It requires just a few minutes each day.
This program acclimates your dog to relaxing in a variety of circumstance ultimately leading to your dog lying down and relaxing even when the doorbell rings or someone knocks on the door. We recommend training this while your dog is lying down. And watch for increasing relaxation, such as lying on one hip. Once your dog is demonstrating relaxed body language, we add a cue such as “relax” at the start of each segment. That gives you the ability to have your dog not only relax, but do it on cue!
Click here for a PDF to the protocol.
We recommend downloading an MP3 file that guides you through the instructions in real time. That’s a great help! You’ll find an audio recording here.
This was originally published as “All Dogs Alchemy”: Ideas to help get through the Covid quarantine.
