FIDO a little too feisty? Are you furry best friend really more of a nightmare? It is important to implement dog training as early as possible for dogs. When you establish strict, consistent rewards and punishments for your pup early on, good behavior will follow. Here are a few training tips to get your dog on the right path.
Dog owners can find great value in being affectionate toward their pets. Positive reinforcement has been proven to work better in a training situation than negativity. Dogs are social beings and love praise. Your efforts will go a long way toward improving future training sessions as well.
If your dog is misbehaving, try to determine why. It is important to work out why your dog is doing what it does. Knowing the reason for poor behavior can make training significantly easier. It is far more difficult to correct an action that you do not fully understand the reasoning behind.
The basics of training your dog involve rationing food and physically showing the dog what to do. By rationing the food your dog gets throughout the day, you can use treats during training more effectively. By physically moving the dog you can “force” the dog to understand what you intend the dog to do, in response to a certain command.
If you want to house train your dog and teach it to ask to go outside, you should associate a command with going outside. Stand with your dog close to the door, say the command and take it outside. As you repeat this, your dog will go to the door when you say the command if it needs to go.
To teach your dog how to walk on a leash, you should start by getting your dog used to the leash at a young age. Walk around your yard or garden with your dog on a leash at first. Reward your dog if it does not tug on the leash. Use a command such as ‘come’ and tug on the leash at the same time. Your dog should quickly understand that you wish it to follow you.
If you wish your dog to respond to commands such as ‘sit’, you should spend up to ten minutes every day positioning your dog in the right position and repeating the command. Your dog will associate the word with the action of sitting. Be patient and reward your dog every time it obeys the command.
Only give commands you are prepared to follow through with, or the dog will learn that it is all right to ignore you. If you give the command to sit, the dog must sit immediately or you will enforce the command with a finger pushing down on the lower back. Never give a command and allow the dog to choose whether to obey you or not unless you want to let the dog be the one in charge.
Make sure your dog is used to being handled, including its mouth and feet. Dogs need their teeth brushed regularly, and once they are used to the routine it is much less of a struggle. It is also easier for the vet to examine them when needed. Toenails should be trimmed every month or so, and the process is less traumatic for dogs accustomed to having their feet handled.
It’s easy to let your dog run free when you bring him home for those first few weeks, only to want to later correct behaviors when they aren’t adorable anymore. Avoid communication breakdown by starting your training schedule immediately with your new dog, so he has the right idea from the start.
Consistency is very important when training your dog. Keep the commands simple to understand so that everyone can use them consistenly with your dog. Ensure everyone understands the importance of consistency in only rewarding good behavior, not bad behavior. If other people are not following your training program, it can make your dog confused, which will set back your dog’s training.
To teach your dog not to chew inappropriately, be sure to provide him with plenty of appropriate things to chew. Make sure they are dog toys, not cast off human belongings. Whenever your dog begins to chew inappropriately, redirect him by giving him one of his own toys and take away the inappropriate item.
Be consistent. It is going to take a lot of work to train your dog. And if you aren’t consistent, you can undo all the work that you did in the first place. You have to teach your dog the way to behave, and that is true whether you feel great or whether you’re busy, stressed or sick. Consistent behavior from you leads to consistent behavior from your dog.
Reward good behavior. This reinforces your dog’s positive behavior and makes him want to do more so he can have more of the reward. The most common way to do this is with a treat, but it doesn’t have to be. You can reward your dog with praise or playtime too.
Use the clicker method for training your dog. Clicker training is a form of conditioning that can help a dog to identify behavior that produces praise or a reward. After your dog has successfully obeyed a command, use the clicker to indicate that he will get a treat. Your dog will soon learn if he isn’t following commands or behaving correctly! Certain studies have shown that using a clicker reduces training time by one third.
The advice in this article is meant to help you improve your dog’s training. A dog’s behavior is reflective of its owner’s ability (and willingness) to control it. Although it may be hard to be strict on your furry little friend, you both will benefit from it at the end.
