Play is an essential part of an animal’s learning process. By learning through play, young animals get a feel for their body and what they’re capable of. They also learn social skills through play—such as how to appropriately set boundaries for themselves and respect the boundaries of others.
Play is also something that many animals do naturally. In its most basic forms, it doesn’t need to be taught. It predates human conventions of more structured school or book-based learning, but still has its own set of rules and structures (like don’t bite to cause harm).
We can tap into this primal function of learning through play and utilize it to help train our pets about what’s appropriate and what’s not, all while having fun!
We can take certain rules that might apply in everyday “serious” life, re-contextualize them into a game, and teach our pet how to behave in those everyday serious situations without having to put them into those situations before they’re ready. Just like how you might practice or train for a big event, or a difficult job.
Making training fun may seem trivial at first, but having fun with training is not only a great way to help keep your pet engaged, it’s a great motivator to help keep the humans involved also! We all know that consistency is highly important in training good behaviors—what better way to stay consistent with a training project than to make it as enjoyable as possible for everyone involved?
Play is a great way to teach our pets, but also to learn from them!
Building Relationships Through Play
Play is a great way to get to know your pet, whether they’re a new addition to your family or have been established for a while already. Through play you can learn what kinds of reinforcers motivate your pet, which you can then use to help further their training. Maybe they like a certain type of toy over another. Or maybe certain motions and actions scare them. Knowing this can help you determine what kinds of tactics to use for different aspects of training.
Of course, treats are another good way to build your relationship, but adding play to the mix and varying the types of reinforcement you use can help your pet to learn that you’re an interesting and dynamic person—someone that should be paid attention to and listened to in all kinds of situations!
Learning through play isn’t a one-way street. Through playful interactions, you and your pet can build trust, learn what makes each other tick, and discover where each other’s boundaries lie.
Having a strong relationship with your pet is paramount when you’re working them through potentially difficult situations. Animals that trust you are more likely to be cooperative and receptive to training. Play helps you and your pet build a common vocabulary of cues that you can use in different situations.
Engagement
Engagement is a critical part of many training projects and a lack of engagement is oftentimes one of the first places that behavioral problems arise.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where your pet just won’t (or can’t) listen to you? There are likely a variety of other contributing factors in the mix, but engagement is definitely lacking in these types of situations.
It may seem straightforward, but engagement has to be worked on. This can be done through play, and is something of a downstream effect of building a stronger relationship through play. If you’ve put in the time and energy to play with your pet, determine what motivates them, and build up your relationship together, you can oftentimes take those benefits into other types of situations that may be hard for your pet to deal with, and help them cope or recover with some playfulness.
Let’s say your pet is overly focused on something and you want to redirect their focus before they go over threshold. Presenting them with your well-charged and conditioned play cues may help to get them re-engaged with you and focused onto more beneficial things.
You can’t communicate clearly without some amount of engagement!
Learning Through Play Provides Training Opportunities
Why wait around for the world to provide you with training opportunities? By engaging your pet in play, you create those training opportunities yourself—oftentimes also giving yourself more favorable training conditions.
There’s a good chance that your pet is already asking you for playful interactions anyhow, so why not make the best use of those interactions too?
You can use play to teach boundaries to your pet, if they occasionally go overboard with their biting or scratching. You can use it to teach recall or better on-leash behaviors. The options really are quite vast. Added bonus, working play into your training (or training into your play!) is also a great way to increase the exercise and stimulation that your pet gets!
And another great use of play is to help train your pet to settle. Always pushing for stimulating activities can have its drawbacks, and animals, especially young ones, oftentimes need a little bit of guidance and training to learn how to settle down. Working breaks into your play sessions is a great way to help teach your pet to settle down on cue.
Again, the options here are vast. Learning through play is an area that you can get creative with and work into your daily routine to avoid some of the humdrum of overly formal training sessions!
