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Can a dog be doing all the AKC Novice Level Obedience exercises in 20 minutes? Through WR-DOS he can! But these exercises (sit, down, stay, heel and come) are for me only a means to an end. The end result I desire is a dog that can be calm, confident, and at all times responsive to his human partner, not his inborn rule book, because he is in Dialogue with his human partner. I have the dog doing the exercises, which are the components of Dialogue, within 20 minutes. But the dog isn't expected to understand the commands, that is, the words, at that point. Though the exercises themselves may be familiar to you, the way I involve the dog in these exercises is unique and incredibly effective. No punishment, no nagging with repeated commands, no treats, no gimmicks, just constant engaging conversation telling the dog, with love and deep sincerity, how wonderful he is. This method is very, very fast and involves no stress for the dog.

The obedience exercises form the comfort zone for the dog, a stress-free structure for practice with his partner. With just ten minutes of practice every day, a dog can learn to cope with all the vicissitudes of life. I much prefer to call this activity therapy rather than training as training sounds so disciplinarian, like we're going to take a bad dog and discipline the bad out of him so that he is a good dog. Wrong! WR-DOS practice is as enjoyable for the dog as play.

We give him this practice, this therapy, to enable him to form new habits, new thought patterns which will override the old thought patterns which were dictated by his inborn rule book. When we watched the dog acting out those old thought patterns, we called him impulsive and aggravating, not realizing that his behavior was being dictated by his rule book as if he were acting out a script. With the new thought patterns, the dog will be able to respond, not to his rule book, but to his human partner, even in a crisis, when the inborn tendency to fear or excitement tries to hold sway.

WR-DOS is so effective because the dogs feel so good about the work and themselves all the time. It's so quick because the dogs understand. And the whole reason it works is because dogs want a good relationship with humans.