As opposed to training specific behaviours (sit, down, come etc.), concept training strengthens and builds a dogs personality and emotional stability. We can focus on specific areas that need strengthening, teaching ‘concepts’ or ‘building blocks’ they can draw from so they are able to handle any situation they are exposed to.

Concept training takes your dogs coping and decision making abilities to the next level! It is easy to train a behaviour but can be very difficult to transfer this behaviour to every possible type of distraction and environmental combination your dog will be exposed to, where as concept training supercharges your dogs resilience, optimism and flexibility to prepare them for any situation.

What is Concept Training?

A happy yellow Labrador Retriever dog sitting on a dirt trail in a forest setting with blurred trees and greenery in the background, looking at the camera with its tongue out.
A playful yellow Labrador Retriever dog running outdoors with a blue ball in its mouth.

Concept training builds your dogs emotional resilience, flexibility and problem solving skills enabling them to make better choices. These skills help shape your dogs personality, it is beneficial for both companion and sporting dogs. Personality is fluid and open to continued development, your dog may naturally be more optimistic but could be susceptible to high excitement or arousal, so we can strengthen the concepts of calm and disengagement. Concept training is trained through various game-based methods that appear to be completely detached from the problem situation, but they shape behaviour and build a strong bond and relationship between owner and dog. Concept training can strengthen the following areas:

  • Calmness

  • Focus (owner focus and forward focus)

  • Confidence

  • Managing arousal up and arousal down

  • Coping with novelty

  • Disengagement

  • Frustration tolerance

  • Independence

  • Optimism

  • Working with boundaries

  • Proximity

A woman walking a yellow Labrador retriever on a trail during sunset. The woman is wearing a navy shirt, black pants, a reddish-orange cap, and carrying a leash and a pouch, while the dog appears happy and attentive.

In conjunction with teaching a dog traditional cues and behaviours and generalising these behaviours in different environments, we can also teach them concepts that will help strengthen specific areas of their personality and emotional stability, enabling them to make right choices by themselves when faced with unusual or overwhelming situations, making them ‘bomb proof’. The games we play in concept training are fun! but feel a bit different to the normal games you may play with your dog (such as tug or throwing a ball) but these activities work really well at developing great decision making, problem solving, flexibility and resilience skills in your dog.

A woman in casual outdoor attire, including a pink hat, is standing on a grassy field with a white dog lying on its back, playing or training. The woman appears to be instructing or engaging with the dog near an orange cone.