As I get nearer to visiting a breeder for a new pup, I'm digging out some of my old material. I found The Power of Positive Dog Training by Pat Miller. In one chapter she briefly talks about capturing or shaping behaviors the dog offers on it's own to train commands. Versus eliciting behaviors through luring and capturing them that way.

I trained Kai mostly through luring behaviors from him. He's a smart guy and learned extremely quickly. But, Shibas being a very independent and willful breed, I wonder if he would have learned more reliably by capturing behaviors he offered. Basically playing to his doggy ego and letting him think it's all his idea. Has anyone tried a completely "hands off" approach to train their Husky? Or any dog? Waiting till they do something you want, rewarding it and eventually linking a command to the behavior as they repeat it. Thoughts on this type of approach? I'm thinking it would be more mentally stimulating to the dog, having to figure out "Hey! Why'd I get this piece of cheese suddenly???".

Kai seemed to know when it was time to learn something new (probably because the clicker and treat bag came out).

We did a mix of both with Bode. For some of the more "complicated" things we more built on things he was already doing. For example, he had a spot where he would like to go to lay down behind a chair. We decided to build on that to make it his "time out" spot and it worked great.

Some of the more basic stuff though like sit, come, etc...we did more of the luring.

I don't think it has to be one or the other. If you see behaviors that you can capitalize on training, use them! However, I don't think that a totally hands off approach would be successful.

I think it depends on the dog. Often capturing offered behavior is the best way to train, and I don't think that carrying a clicker and some treats around in the beginning and waiting for a behavior to appear and treating it would confuse the dog, especially once they get the hang of the fact that click = good stuff. But you can't wait around forever for them to offer you good behavior all the time, so eliciting behavior (i.e. initially teaching tricks like sit, lay, etc.) is also a must. A good balance of the two based on the dog's personality and learning style is your best bet. Every minute of every day is a training opportunity in the making.

We have always done both. And after training 4 different dogs I would really say what works best is going to depend on both what you are trying to teach and the individual dog. Ultimately I think you know your dog best and will figure it out as you work with them.