What is the waiting game for impulse control?
Red Light, Green Light is a great game for helping kids learn the importance of listening and follow Read More
Can impulse control be trained?
Kristian Schroeder
2025-06-24 15:06:39
Count answers
: 25
Impulse control is all about our dogs managing their own impulses, rather than us having to micromanage them and constantly tell them “stay,” “leave,” or “no!” By working in impulse control in our training, we can help our dogs learn to make good decisions and offer behaviour we like around many common distractions, exhibiting self-control and making better choices. It’s a good idea to start by teaching a few basic behaviours first, such as sit, so that our dog has some idea of behaviours that often “pay” well. If our dogs have a reinforcement history for these behaviours, they are more likely to try offering them when we start our impulse control training. The next important thing to remember is that we need to make it REALLY easy for our dogs to get it right. Another factor of impulse control is that we aren’t going to cue our dogs – if we ask our dogs to sit, stay etc then we are managing them; the goal of impulse control training is for our dogs to be managing themselves. We also have our Impulse Control Masterclasses that can help you teach you and your dogs all about impulse control. Our Puppy and Dog Training classes also cover Impulse control as well as other life skills that are vital for your dogs!
Haylie Ondricka
2025-06-24 15:05:08
Count answers
: 28
Impulse control is one of the most important skills you can teach your dog.
This community is geared towards modern, force-free, science based methods and recommendations.
Make sure you check out our WIKI for recommended resources and articles about common problems.
Read also
How to teach ADHD child impulse control?
Posting classroom rules and routines lets children know what’s expected of them, and also serves as Read More
Jonathon Bartell
2025-06-24 11:47:20
Count answers
: 28
Impulse control doesn’t come naturally to dogs, but with a little bit of training and positive reinforcement, you can help your dog to stay calm and learn self-control. Self-control doesn’t come naturally to dogs and is a skill that they need to learn. Impulse control is about teaching your dog to engage their brain and override their automatic response to a stimulus. Giving your dog mentally stimulating activities that are of low arousal will help to engage their senses and increase their overall level of calmness. There are some useful behaviours you can teach your dog to help them stay calm and learn self-control rather than reacting impulsively. We recommend teaching ‘sit’, ‘down’, and ‘wait’. Once your dog can do a ‘sit’ and ‘down’ on cue, you can practice holding these behaviours for longer periods of time. Slowly increase how long you wait when they perform a behaviour before you mark and reward them. Make sure to build this up gradually so that your dog doesn’t get frustrated.