The 4Rs of Training Your Dog & Yourself: How Neuroscience Guides Lasting Behaviors and a Great F.O.C.n' Dog!
The 4Rs of Training Your Dog: How Neuroscience Builds Lasting Behaviors
It's not obedience, it's belonging.
Training your dog doesn’t have to feel like a battle of wills. The same neurobiology that helps us humans form habits also works for our dogs. Their brains, like ours, are wired to belong and turn repeated intentions into practices of intentional automaticity.
What the heck is that, you say?
When the stuff we learn moves into our System 1, fast brain, it becomes part of our less conscious, though still intentional, responses. In the early stage of learning, we bounce all the things in our frontal lobe, our System 2 thinking space, where the increased cognitive load of "new learning" inhibits intentional automaticity.
Lucky for us and our pups, we have a built-in system to speed the learning up!
When you harness that wiring with the 4Rs: Relationships, Recurrence, Resistance, and Rewards, training becomes faster, easier, more natural, and way more fun for both you and your pup.
R1. Relationships
Dogs, like us, are wired for belonging. Their survival instinct is tied to their pack: you. That bond fuels their learning. When your dog feels secure in the relationship, their brain releases oxytocin and serotonin, the neurochemicals of trust, calm, and connection.
Make no mistake about it, your dog knows Feel, Own, Care, Belonging! Your dog doesn't think of you as its owner, she thinks of you as her person.
They feel for us (they can literally smell-feel our emotional state).
They own us as their person.
They care, with every nuzzle, wag, and sloppy kiss.
Maybe dogs are God’s reminder that we’re designed to Feel, Own, and Care for each other in belonging.
📚 Science: Warmth in eye contact between our dogs and us has been shown to increase oxytocin in both species, deepening trust and cooperation (Nagasawa et al., Science, 2015).
What to Do:
Make training relational, not transactional.
Use a higher-pitched happy tone, warm eye contact, and touch to reinforce your bond.
Remember: your dog learns best when they feel they belong with you, not when they feel threatened. Neuroscience 101: Nobody learns better under fearful stress, dogs too.
When you see the dog is yours, and the dog sees you as hers, you've freed up the dog's ability to focus and figure out what you want from her. You'll probably figure out what she wants from you, also.
R2. Recurrence
A repeated occurrence wires the brain, yours and your dog’s. Each time your dog practices “sit” or “stay,” neural pathways strengthen, like trails being worn into a field. That’s how a new behavior moves from effortful to intentional automaticity.
📚 Science: Repetition (in timing and context) strengthens synaptic connections and wraps them in myelin, making signals faster and more automatic (Medina, Brain Rules, 2014).
What to Do:
Keep training sessions short and frequent (5 minutes, 2–3 times a day beats one long session).
Repeat commands consistently with the same words and tone.
If possible, during the same time of day and in the same environmental context.
Think of practice like “rain carving a canyon.” Each repetition deepens the channel.
R3. Resistance
The brain, human and canine, loves to save energy. If something is hard, clunky, or confusing, the brain resists it. If it’s easy, the brain flows with it.
For the things you want them to learn, remove the resistance- for things you want them to stop, add resistance.
📚 Science: Dogs, like all animals, follow principles of operant conditioning: behaviors with less friction and more clarity are more likely to repeat (Skinner, 1953). Shawn Achor, in The Happiness Advantage (2010), describes this as the "path of least resistance" — we naturally default to the easier option. This applies to dogs, too- they will repeat what requires the least effort and offers the clearest outcome.
What to Do:
Lower the friction: break big commands into tiny steps. Reward progress at each stage. Remember, lots of distractions = friction. Give your pup a positive relational space for the commands. The most persistent and distracting friction that can exist is a lack of belonging.
Set up the environment so the “right” behavior is easiest (e.g., leash, gate, or placement).
Make unwanted behavior harder (e.g., keep shoes out of reach instead of punishing chewing).
R4. Rewards
Nothing wires in a behavior faster than a well-timed reward. Dopamine lights up the brain when something feels good. That’s the neural “note-to-self”: Do that again! No reward, intrinsic or extrinsic, our brain says, "Well, that didn't matter."
But timing is everything. We humans have about 30–60 seconds to lock in the circuit. I haven't seen the study for dogs, but I figure it to be 30 seconds or less.
And our pups know this when they get things right, signifying that they also have an internal as well as external reward system.
📚 Science: Dopamine release is tied to immediacy. Delays weaken the reinforcement signal (Schultz, Neuron, 1997).
What to Do:
Reward immediately after the behavior with treats, praise, or play.
We can only offer extrinsic treats, toys, affection, and excited voice rewards. They're just like us, we all need to be acknowledged and celebrated for our successes!
Keep rewards varied and in intensity, but consistent in application. Success is built on many “yes, that’s it!” moments.
Putting It All Together
Your dog’s brain is already equipped with the 4Rs. When you work with that wiring instead of against, or irrespective of it, training becomes less about control and more about figuring out what you want to do because you are theirs.
Relationships: belonging drives motivation and the adoption to learn (neural well-being and performance).
Recurrence: a regular set of timing, cadence, and context.
Resistance: reduce for the right behavior, the easy behavior.
Reward: quickly and consistently, we need the dopamine burn-in.
Do this, and your dog won’t just learn commands. They’ll form habits that last a lifetime, built on love, trust, and joy.
Bonus Kibble:
Stopping the Puppy Shark-Bite!
If you get the puppy teeth shark bite, do a high-pitched drill out! (Resistance) Your pup should stop. If not, do it again. (Recurrence) This time, wince and show pulling back.
Acknowledge his pause (Relationship), and wait for a few seconds. Set a toy in front of him and then put the focus on the toy or him to chew on that.
The moment he goes for the toy, praise the heck out of him! (Dopamine!)Shouldn't take but a few times, and the biting problem should go away!
Do this, and your dog won’t just learn commands, they’ll form habits that last a lifetime, built on love &belonging.
One last treat: We share the same 4Rs system. It works for us, too!
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you found it helpful, please share it or invite somebody to subscribe to my newsletter. Catch ya, Paul.