Proofing

What Is Proofing?

Proofing is the process of making a learned behavior more reliable by gradually practicing it under increasingly difficult conditions.

Teaching your dog a behavior is the first step.

Proofing is how we begin turning that behavior into something the dog can reliably perform in everyday life.

Your dog may perform Down perfectly in your living room.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they can perform the same Down on a sidewalk while another dog walks past.

The behavior hasn’t changed.

The difficulty has.

Proofing helps bridge that gap.

When proofing a behavior, we generally don’t want to make everything harder at once.

We might increase the distance between you and your dog.

We might increase how long they maintain the behavior.

Or we might introduce a more difficult distraction.

But dramatically increasing all of those things at the same time can make the exercise unnecessarily difficult.

Proofing isn’t about trying to catch the dog making a mistake.

It’s about creating progressively more challenging situations where the dog has a reasonable opportunity to succeed.

If the dog begins struggling, that’s useful information.

We may need to reduce the difficulty, help the dog succeed again, and then build from there.

Eventually, we want behaviors to work outside of formal training sessions.

The front door opens.

Another dog walks past.

A squirrel runs across the sidewalk.

Guests arrive.

The environment changes, but the dog still understands what we’re asking.

That’s what proofing is preparing them for.

Teaching a behavior shows your dog what to do.

Proofing teaches them that the behavior still applies when life becomes more difficult.

Training creates the behavior. Proofing helps create reliability.