Nothing in Life is Free

Nothing In Life Is Free (NILIF) Approach To Training A Dog


Training a dog is one of the things that scares new dog owners the most. All dogs get trained, whether their owner goes through a formal training process or not. Scary as this process is for the owner, it is even scarier for the dog.

Dogs are pack animals. They need to have a place in a pack and they learn correct behavior from their pack. When you bring a dog into your home, from the dog’s perspective it has joined a new pack. What are the rules going to be? Who is in charge? What are the expectations?

Instilling these expectations can be a positive, cooperative experience or a coercive one. For years, many dog trainers and owners relied on punishing a dog for doing the “wrong” thing, but the dog often didn’t realize what action it was being punished for.

If the owner trains the dog based on respect and trust, the dog will respond much better. The owner provides positive reinforcement methods through praising desired behaviors and ignores undesirable behaviors. In this way, the dog learns the rules of his new pack.

The dog also learns another very important thing: who is the alpha dog of the pack. In a pack environment, the alpha controls access to resources and rewards. In the Nothing In Life Is Free (NILIF) Approach, it is the owner that provides these resources and rewards. This teaches the dog the rules and boundaries of its new pack.

This is not a quick-fix training course or temporary method of curbing behaviors. It is rather a way of living with your dog and making its instincts work for you instead of against you.

In this approach, when the dogs seeks attention, it must work for that reward. For example get food, you may tell it to sit and make the dog wait until it sits before being fed. This teaches it both pack hierarchy and the “sit” command. Every interaction with the dog can be used in this way to teach commands. Lying down before a ball is thrown, doing a sit-stay before being put on a leash, or any other time the dog must work for what it wants is a teaching moment.

The NILIF approach provides a sense of security for the dog and reduces stress levels. Both dominant and submissive dogs benefit from knowing their place in the pack hierarchy. The dominant dogs learn that the things they want – treats, playtime, attention – come from doing what the alpha wants – sitting, staying, heeling. The submissive dogs learn that they have a strong pack leader and can be more self-assured.

The benefits for both owner and dog of this approach are actually the same: less stress. By knowing its place in a pack, the dog doesn’t have to fight the owner. By not having the fight the dog, the owner can enjoy the benefits of canine companionship much more.