Luring – Teaching Your Dog That Following You Feels Good

Today’s lesson is your first practical training exercise.

Before we ask our dogs to ignore distractions, make good decisions around triggers or respond to cues in difficult environments, we first need to answer one simple question:

Why should they want to follow us in the first place?

Luring is one of the quickest ways to build that foundation.

By guiding your dog with something they find rewarding, you’re teaching them that moving with you consistently leads to good outcomes. Over time, this develops engagement, trust and a habit of choosing to stay connected with you.

Food or Toy?

Both can be effective, but they create different emotional states.

Using Food

Food is often the best choice for most dogs, particularly those who become over-aroused, anxious or easily frustrated.

It encourages calmer thinking, slower movements and a more measured emotional state, making it ideal while building new behaviours.

Using a Toy

Toys can create fantastic engagement for dogs that genuinely enjoy them, but they can also increase arousal.

If your dog becomes over-excited, grabs, barks, spins or struggles to think clearly during toy play, choose food for this exercise instead. We want your dog focused and successful, not overwhelmed.

There will be plenty of opportunities to build play skills later in the challenge.

What You’ll Learn Today

• What a lure actually is.
• The difference between luring and bribing.
• How to guide your dog’s movement correctly.
• How to begin fading the lure so your dog follows your movement rather than simply chasing food.
• Why this exercise becomes so valuable when you later begin working around distractions.

Today’s Practice

Find a quiet, distraction-free area such as your living room, garden or hallway.

Spend around 5 minutes practicing.

Focus on:

• Keeping your lure close to your dog’s nose.
• Moving slowly and clearly.
• Rewarding the moment your dog follows your movement.
• Ending the session while your dog is still enjoying the game.

Remember, we’re not looking for perfection.

We’re simply teaching your dog one important lesson:

Following you is one of the best decisions they can make.

Take your time, keep the sessions fun and celebrate the small wins because they’re the foundations that everything else in this challenge will be built upon.

I’d love to see your training videos in the WhatsApp group as you work through the challenge.

Please keep each clip to 30 seconds or less. Feel free to either:

• Share your best reps and celebrate your progress, or
• Share a rep you found challenging, so the community can offer encouragement and suggestions.

Please note that I won’t be reviewing or providing individual feedback on video submissions during the challenge. The purpose of sharing is to help you stay accountable, celebrate your wins, and learn alongside other owners working through the same journey.