Chapter 4
🐾 Emotion is just as important as technique
The emotions you bring into training are just as important — if not even more important — than the technique itself.
Before we start food driving, the dog should already be at the level of arousal and motivation we want.
Food driving alone will not create that motivation from nothing.
➡️ First, bring your dog into the right emotional state.
➡️ Then start the food driving and maintain that energy.
🎉 Make the dog feel amazing
While your dog is moving in food driving, you can really give it everything:
✅ praise
✅ motivation
✅ joy
✅ excitement
✅ celebration
“Yes! Great boy!” 🎉🔥
The dog should get an incredibly positive feeling during this exercise and think:
“This is amazing — I want to do this again!”
Your emotion matters because the dog should not only enjoy the food, but also enjoy how happy and excited you are about the work.
🏡 Separate calm exercises from high-energy work
Technical exercises that need to be learned calmly — such as:
➡️ Sit, down and stand
➡️ Holding the dumbbell
➡️ Indicating articles
can be practiced relaxed at home.
Heelwork and food driving, on the other hand, should be connected with:
✅ the chain collar
✅ lots of motivation
✅ a suitable training environment, such as the training field or garden
It is important to clearly separate these different types of training.
We cannot expect the dog to work with calm concentration in one exercise and immediately switch to maximum energy in the next without creating clear context.
⚡ Build positive expectation
Ideally, your dog’s motivation does not only come from the activation itself.
Over time, the expectation of something fun and exciting happening should already increase the dog’s energy before the food driving even begins.
💡 The goal is to create a clear picture: heelwork means energy, motivation, fun and full commitment.