Bringing a new puppy into your home is the start of an incredible journey. Though you may be wrapped up in the excitement of your new addition, it’s important to realize that this is the best time to “capture” your dog’s positive natural behavior. 

In this article we’ll cover the details of behavior capture training and how to best implement this practice in your home. 

Behavior capture dog training is a way to reward and replicate some of the positive behaviors that your dog offers naturally. While this method isn’t best for teaching your dog a new trick, it’s a wonderful way to add a cue and reward to an action that you want your dog to continue.

Behavior capture training grabs a hold of a behavior that is natural to your dog due to their demeanor. Similar to other methods of positive reinforcement training, this is an effective way to encourage your pup to keep up the good work. As long as you have a clicker or some other sound device, you can begin behavior capture in your home.  

Behavior capture training and clicker training is similar in the sense of getting your pup’s attention. While the clicker is often used when capturing a dog’s natural behaviors, capture training does not involve teaching new tricks. Most often when people refer to clicker training, they are referring to teaching new tricks and rewarding the results. Behavior capture training only involves actions that your dog offers naturally, not ones that are taught.

In order to successfully capture train your canine companion, it’s important to be aware of the ideal methodology for capture training. In order to better understand the process, let’s dive into the steps!

1. Be sure to have a clicker and treats ready at all times from the moment you begin behavior capture training. Since you want to highlight the behaviors that come naturally to your pup, you want to be ready at any moment to use your clicker and reward the action when it happens. Being ready at all times will give you the chance to reward your pup for their natural behaviors as they come!
2. Though you can capture train your pup for an array of natural behaviors, you will want to stick to one behavior at a time to avoid confusion. Choose your first behavior and wait until your dog begins to show physical signs of performing the behavior. Once they do, click and treat.
3. Once you have mastered the process, continue repeating these steps each time your dog shows the behavior. By doing this, you can essentially “capture” the behavior and encourage them to continue to do this in the future.
4. Once your dog begins to perform this behavior naturally at the right times, be sure to add a cue. This can be any type of praise or word you will always use when the behavior is shown.
5. The last thing to keep in mind is how important it is to use positive reinforcement and rewards during the process. Be sure to offer your pup plenty of praise and treats once they begin to do this behavior on cue.

In order to be successful in your behavior capture training, it’s best to start with the basics. Since sitting is one of the most basic commands and a natural behavior in dogs, it’s a great place to start on your capture training journey. As long as you are ready to be an attentive trainer that is ready to offer a click and a treat the moment your dog sits, you have everything you need to get started.

First, start by using your clicker and offering a treat each time your dog sits naturally. Once you feel like your pup is beginning to catch on to the fact that this is a desired behavior, you can then offer a cue for the action (sit).

Once you’ve added in the cue, be sure to voice the word sit each time your dog naturally sits on their own. Repeating this process and offering positive praise is the best way to help your pup learn how to perform an array of natural behaviors on cue.

Once you’ve mastered the basics of behavior capture training, you can begin to apply this technique to other natural dog behaviors as well. Some of the easiest behaviors to capture include:

• Calling your dog to come to you. Since our dogs already long to be by our side, it won’t be hard to capture train this behavior.
• Capturing silence or training your dogs not to jump on guests when others enter your home is another technique that can be capture trained with repetition.
• Loose-leash training is another behavior that benefits from behavior capture training. While you can combine this with other methods of training as well, clicker training is often used to teach your pup to come when called, stay at your side, and other loose-leash training commands.

Capture training is one of the easiest ways to reward your dog’s natural behavior and temperament. Be sure to review the tips we’ve listed above, and your dog will be the most well behaved pup on the block!

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