Lessons from Roxy: the power of choice

Roxy was a foster fail, though we say she forced herself upon us. Her lessons are in contrast to Winston’s, her yin to his yang. Our sweary, ultra smart, Little Brown dog. We kept our promise that she could be an only dog in her autumn years, she reigned another 4 years in Winston’s absence, taking all of our hearts with her on Saturday 13th January 2025.

Kinda building on the trust theme I started with, I wanted to talk about how adding choices (when appropriate) can really serve your dog some agency in living with you, and build more trust. Roxy taught me this specifically with Place Training. It was actually a really fascinating lesson for me. I reflect on it a lot, especially when I’m banging on about it in Puppy School. I’m sure it’s applicable for many other cues too.

Place Training – “go to bed” or “on your mat” aka stationing – is a valuable management cue. More than management even, it is often about safety. It can become a way to set the expectation for behaviour in certain contexts, and helps to make bed time more cooperative. For Roxy, we needed it at the front gate when leaving or arriving, in the backyard to prevent lawn mower chasing, and at the front door to prevent her rushing out to steal from the pizza delivery guy or pickpocket a Christmas treat from a certain AWL Inspector’s pocket…

Roxy on her big fluffy bed

At first though, choice can reduce clarity. Too much choice causes overwhelm. Just like with us looking for chocolate at the Supermarket, right? Once we have clear criteria, the choice becomes easier, and it feels nice to have some agency in what we choose. Especially with dogs, training we use for easier living, management and obedience are often the opposite of what they want to do. Once they understand the expectation, adding some element of choice can help them be a more willing participant – after all, it was their idea!

How?

1. Start easy with little choice: 1 surface type (anything with an edge, we used a mattress-style dog bed), 1 cue to get on it (“bed” for us), 1 cue to get off it (“off” for us), use luring and markers to start the process
2. Gradually increase the time between the on and the off for the implied “stay”
3. Work systematically on your criteria for distance, duration and distractions (3Ds), add a cued “stay” to help
4. When it’s getting pretty reliable, add a second surface and see how your dog takes to the choice; you may have to revisit step 3 to guide your dog
5. When the dog seems to have a good understanding and choices are working well, try other surfaces to see how your dog generalises it (trampoline beds, place boards, fluffy, flat, cave style, different heights)

Here’s a video of Roxy demonstrating place for online classes during covid: https://youtu.be/lXsc27lZGFk?si=5MVD8_sTp_IAyhBi

The evolution of this in our house was a little clunky, I confess. It was Roxy that generalised the “bed” cue before I had actually realised. We did have a few other cues that were similar, mainly so we could be specific if we needed to: “up” for cuddle time on the human couch, “couch” for the dog couch, “in” for the run or crate. This was probably a little bit for Winston given he sometimes was very specific with context – see the lessons from him on cues & context here.

What was super interesting was when I started adding choice of surfaces, Roxy didn’t always choose the one I thought she would. I mean, we ended up with a lot of choices in various places in the house, most of which could be accessed at any time. Because we did want that control at the front door, we had a mat beside the door and I did a lot of the training there. I assumed she’d choose that to be close to potential visitors, but she mostly chose the dog couch on the other side of the room. I realised that actually gave her a better vantage point – she could see out the door, part of the yard and possibly the gate, rather than being blocked by the door jamb. Smart girl.

Roxy on the ratty old dog couch, where she can see out the front door much better

Watching how she exercised this agency became super fascinating to me. She still seemed aware of the context and seemed to decide if she needed to be available if I needed her. If not, she might look at me, sigh, and saunter down the hallway to get into her crate. Or she might make what seemed a lazy effort, with only one paw on the bed and a serve of side-eye. Sometimes the bed placement worked against her, and she made the choice where she could still have one paw on, stretching & contorting her body to make the vantage point better (you’ve still gotta reward that effort). Rarely she just would not settle – one paw on and contorted to try to see me in the kitchen or wherever, she just kept breaking it and staring at me, evidently in a mood. How I handled these would be case by case, in that yes, I could insist she just did it, or I could modify it and ask again (like using a cool mat if she was hot), and mostly I would just workaround it by popping a towel by my feet. She generalised it that well a towel or even a piece of paper worked in a pinch.

There’s always a caveat

I’ve already mentioned how adding choice too soon can actually create confusion and work against you. Also consider that before adding choice your cue should be understood well enough so if you need to insist the dog can still do it. Choices can’t always be made.

I often say I use obedience training to facilitate the behaviour choices I want a dog to make in certain situations. This is to help us live better together. Using place training – the opposite of what the dog wants to do when they could be stealing pizza – sets expectations without creating a robot. For a good partnership, we can thoughtfully add some agency into those choices. Freedom with rules, right?