Windows of opportunity in life with our dog

Windows helped me understand I could allow “crazy” behavior in some situations without “ruining” my dog

I’ve talked a lot about windows of opportunity in my time as a dog owner. That means this has been one of the most requested blogs I’ve ever written—and also one of the hardest to put together as I’ve learned, questioned, and changed more.

Here’s our personal experience with windows of opportunity. What are they? How did we first teach and implement them?How do we use them now?

* As always, please remember I am not a professional trainer. I’m a pet owner who loves geeking out over her dog. This article (like everything here) is based on our individual lifestyle and goals!

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What are windows of opportunity?

At their simplest, windows of opportunity are signals we use to tell our dogs when it’s time to express drive and when it isn’t.

This way we don’t confuse them by sometimes encouraging rowdy behavior and other times expecting them to be chill. (Particularly valuable if we want a dog who can both have fun with crazy tug and chill at public patios!)

I first learned about windows of opportunity from Jay Jack. Above are the signals he personally uses for each window.

The most helpful way for me to conceptualize windows initially was that while Scout’s obedience commands gave her one specific behavior to perform, windows gave her a range of acceptable behaviors. I was still providing guidance and control over what she did—but in a more flexible way than saying “hold this down stay” or “walk in heel”.

You can hear Jay talk about windows of opportunity in his foundational lesson plan here.

Chad Mackin and Jay discuss the window theory on Chad’s Something to Bark About podcast here.