From NILIF to REPS: Rebranding a Protocol That Deserved a Second Chance

You just brought your new dog home. Maybe you adopted them from a rescue, maybe you hired a trainer to help with the transition. And somewhere in that first week — before you’ve even figured out what food they like or where they prefer to sleep — someone tells you about NILIF. Nothing In Life Is Free.

The idea was simple: your dog has to earn everything. Every meal, every door opening, every walk. Sit before you eat. Sit before you go outside. Sit before I even look at you. The dog hasn’t been in your home long enough to find the water bowl, and you’re already running them through an obedience toll booth.

For a long time, this was standard advice. Trainers recommended it, rescues sent dogs home with it, and well-meaning owners followed it religiously — often during the exact window when their dog needed the opposite. Instead of building a relationship, learning who this dog was, and helping them feel safe, people spent that critical first week micromanaging every interaction. You want to go outside? Sit first. You want dinner? Sit first. The dog just lost everything they knew, and now they’re living with a hall monitor.

Eventually, the tide turned. Kathy Sdao — one of the more influential voices in modern dog training — wrote Plenty in Life Is Free, and it challenged the whole premise — why are we acting like our dogs owe us something before we meet their basic needs? The book made a strong case, and NILIF fell out of favor. And honestly? Good. The rigid, transactional version of it should have gone away.

But here’s what I think we lost in the process: there was actually something useful buried inside NILIF. Not the philosophy — not the idea that your dog has to earn their life. But the structure.The built-in opportunities to practice and reinforce behavior throughout the day, using things you were already going to do. That part? That part was gold. We just need to rebrand it.

The Glow-Up

So let’s do that. Let me introduce you to REPS: Reinforce Everyday Practice Situations.

REPS isn’t a philosophy. It’s not about making your dog earn their keep or proving they respect you before you open a door. It’s a training strategy — and a really efficient one. The concept is simple: you’re already going to open the back door, put the food bowl down, clip the leash on, and head out for a walk. These things are happening regardless. REPS just means you use those moments as built-in opportunities to cue a behavior and reinforce it with the thing you were about to do anyway.

Ask your dog for a sit-wait before you open the door, then release them through it. That’s not a toll booth — that’s a sit-wait rep with real-life distraction (the door) and real-life reinforcement (going outside). And it happens multiple times a day without you carving out a single extra minute for a “training session.” You’re not adding anything to your routine. You’re just making your routine work harder.

This is what makes REPS so powerful: you’re practicing behaviors in the moments where they actually matter, with distractions that are genuine, and reinforcement your dog is genuinely motivated by. That’s proofing. That’s building strong, reliable behavior — not because your dog owes you something, but because repetition and reinforcement are how behavior gets stronger. That’s just how learning works.

Before You Go Full Hall Monitor Again

That said, REPS isn’t a mandate. It’s not something you need to apply to every interaction you have with your dog throughout the day — that’s exactly the kind of rigidity that made NILIF so exhausting in the first place. You don’t need to ask your dog to sit before you play with them. You don’t need a behavior before they get access to their food bowl. REPS is something that’s available to you, not something that’s required of you. You pick the moments that make sense as training opportunities and let the rest just be life.

It’s also not for every dog in every stage. If your dog just came home from a shelter three days ago and is still figuring out whether they’re safe, this isn’t the time to start cueing sits at every doorway. REPS is for dogs who are settled, adjusted, and ready to learn — and for behaviors the dog already understands that you’re looking to strengthen and proof in real-world contexts. You’re not teaching something brand new at the back door. You’re reinforcing something your dog already knows in a moment where it actually matters.

And one more thing worth letting go of from the NILIF era: REPS has nothing to do with dominance, leadership, or making sure your dog “respects” you. That whole framework was baked into the original protocol — the idea that if your dog got something for free, they’d start running the household. REPS isn’t about status. It’s about learning. Behavior that gets reinforced gets stronger. That’s it.

REPS in the Wild

I’ve been doing this with my own dog, Fernando. I take him to my partner’s farm regularly, where there are goats, sheep, Caucasian Shepherd dogs, barn cats, and free-ranging chickens. So as you can imagine, walking out the door to head onto the farm is pretty exciting. There’s so much to sniff, explore, and take in. It’s a rich environment for a dog.

This is exactly the kind of moment REPS was made for. I ask Fernando for a sit and wait before I open that door, not because he needs to earn his way outside, but because I need a strong, reliable sit-stay in high-arousal outdoor environments, and this is the perfect opportunity to practice one. The distraction is real. The excitement is real. And the reinforcement — getting released to go explore the farm — is about as motivating as it gets. That’s a quality rep. And I get it every single time we walk out that door.

If you want to start using REPS with your dog, think about two things. First, what’s a behavior your dog already knows that you’d like to make stronger or more reliable? Maybe it’s a sit-stay, a down, a wait. Something they understand but could use more practice with — especially around distractions.

Second, think about what your dog finds reinforcing that’s already happening throughout their day. And get creative here, reinforcement isn’t just food bowls and door openings. It’s being released to go sniff that fire hydrant they’re locked onto. It’s getting the leash taken off at the park. It’s the start of a tug game. It’s the opportunity to roll in the grass, jump on the bed, or hop in the car for a ride. It’s getting to greet a visitor who just came through the front door after waiting patiently instead of charging at them. Your dog’s day is full of things they want but can’t access without you — you open the doors, unclip the leash, start the game. Those are your reinforcers, and they’re already built into your routine. Now you just match the two — cue the behavior in that moment, reinforce it with the thing your dog actually wants, and you’ve got yourself a rep.

Free Stuff Still Exists

And remember — you don’t always have to do this. Plenty in life is still free, and it should be. Pet your dog because you want to. Let them on the couch without a sit first. Give them a treat because it’s Tuesday. REPS isn’t about turning every moment into a training exercise. It’s just a reframe. NILIF had the right idea buried under the wrong philosophy — the structure was useful, but the “earn everything” mentality wasn’t.

REPS keeps the useful part and ditches the rest. You’re not adding work to your day. You’re just being a little more strategic about what’s already happening.

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If this kind of practical, no-nonsense training advice is your thing, I write a monthly newsletter where I go deeper on topics like this — plus stories about my own dogs, Fernando and Chester, who keep me humble on a regular basis. Over 3,800 dog people are already on the list and it’s free. Join here.

And if you’re in the thick of it with a reactive, aggressive, or anxious dog and you’re tired of Googling your way through it alone — The Dog Lab is my virtual coaching program. You get me in your corner with a customized behavior plan, ongoing support through WhatsApp, and someone who actually gets what you’re dealing with. Check it out here.