Duration or hold your station?

Dogs are exquisite at knowing when a behavior they are doing needs to be slowed down, held or ended quickly. We as handlers need to be strong observers of when these behaviors happen naturally so that when we are requesting a dog to "hold their station" it's filled with understanding.

Back in the olden days, trainers were taught about the three D's--distance-duration-distraction. You can predict that any conversation with Kay Laurence of Learning About Dogs is going to toss out that old school mentality as irrelevant and quite possibly confusing to the learner.

Kay Laurence  of Learning About Dogs and Sue McGuire, an animal shelter Canine Behavior Program manager, start a two part series exploring duration.