Five Impulse Control Games That Take Two Minutes Each

Most of the behaviours owners find difficult — jumping, snatching, barging through doors, pulling towards other dogs, mugging hands for food — come down to the same thing. The dog wants something, and they have never learned that waiting is a way of getting it.

Impulse control is a skill. It can be taught in two-minute sessions, and it generalises far better than people expect.

Game one: It’s Yer Choice

The foundation game, popularised by Susan Garrett, and the one to start with.

1. Hold a handful of treats in a closed fist. Offer it to your dog
2. They will lick, paw, nibble and nose at it. Say nothing, do nothing, keep the fist closed
3. The instant they back off — even an inch, even for half a second — say “yes” and feed one treat from your other hand
4. Repeat until they back off immediately
5. Now open your palm flat with treats on it. If they dive, close the fist. Open again when they back off
6. Then treats on the floor with your hand hovering. Then uncovered

The lesson: the way to get the thing is to stop trying to get the thing.

Two minutes a day for a week and most dogs will sit and look at you when food appears, instead of launching.

Game two: Doorway waits

Doors are where dogs practise barging, and a dog who shoots out of a front door is a dog at risk.

1. Walk to the door and put your hand on the handle. If your dog surges forward, take your hand off and step back
2. Repeat until they hold position while your hand is on the handle
3. Open the door an inch. If they move, close it
4. Build to a fully open door with the dog waiting
5. Release with a word — “okay” — and let them through

No cue needed at first. The door opening is the cue, and the rule is that movement closes it.

Apply the same rule to the car boot, the garden door and the crate. Within a fortnight most dogs pause at every threshold automatically.

Game three: Food bowl manners

1. Hold the bowl at waist height. Your dog probably jumps or spins
2. Lower it slowly. The instant a paw leaves the ground or they lunge, raise it back up
3. Lower again. Repeat
4. The bowl only reaches the floor when four feet are on the ground
5. Add a sit, then a brief wait, then a release word

This one is fast — most dogs work it out in three or four meals — and it removes a daily rehearsal of over-excitement.

Game four: Toy control

Arousal around toys is where a lot of dogs lose their heads, and it is the closest lab model for how they behave around a squirrel.

1. Hold a favourite toy still
2. Wait for your dog to stop staring at it and look at you. Mark that and immediately start the game
3. Play for ten seconds
4. Stop, hold the toy still, and wait for the disengagement again
5. Repeat

You are building an on-off switch: high arousal, then back to thinking, then high arousal again. This transfers directly to real-world situations where a dog has to come back from excitement — and it is far more useful than a dog who is simply never allowed to get excited.

Game five: Scatter and wait

1. Show your dog a handful of food
2. Ask for a sit
3. Toss the food onto the grass or the floor a metre away
4. Wait. The dog will stare at it, then at you
5. The moment they look at you, say “go find” and release

This teaches the most useful version of impulse control: checking in with you when something good appears. Over time you will see dogs do this automatically — spot a bird, look at the handler — which is the behaviour that makes off-lead walks safe.

Making them stick

Short sessions. Two minutes. Five repetitions. Stop while your dog still wants more.

Every day. Frequency beats duration by a wide margin.

Raise difficulty in one dimension at a time. More exciting food, or more distraction, or longer waits — not all three.

Practise at low arousal first. A dog who cannot wait for a biscuit in the kitchen has no chance of waiting when a rabbit appears.

Pay the choice, not the position. What you are rewarding is the moment of decision — the dog choosing to stop and think. That is the thing you want more of.

Why this works better than telling a dog off

Punishing a dog for grabbing, barging or lunging suppresses the behaviour in that moment and teaches nothing about what to do instead. Worse, it usually raises arousal, and an aroused dog has less self-control, not more.

These games work in the opposite direction. They make self-control the strategy that pays, practised hundreds of times in easy conditions, so it is available when conditions are hard.

That is what people are describing when they say a dog “grew out of it”. Mostly, the dog learned.