Dog Training Tips

When trying to train your dog or puppy, there are a few tips that you should know to make the job easier and more enjoyable. Try following these simple tips when training your dog.

Start easy. Some tricks are easier to learn than others are. You should start off by teaching your dog something that guarantees success. Two tricks that are easy to learn are "sit" and "shake". You can easily push your dog into a sitting position when you say, "sit" and then reinforce that behavior with a treat. You can do the same thing with "shake" after the dog is in a sitting position. Once the dog learns to associate word commands with getting a treat, they will be in a good position to learn tricks that are more difficult. The dog needs to understand the correlation between their actions and receiving a treat, once they understand that what they do is rewarded, they will try to do whatever it takes to get the reward.

Use the ABCs of behaviorism. Behaviorism is a type of psychology that became popular in the 1960s and still works today. Behaviorism will always work because it is an unconscious drive towards reward and (to some extent) away from punishment. The ABCs of behaviorism stand for Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence. When teaching your dog to sit, the antecedent (or thing that happens before the behavior) is your saying "sit". The behavior is what the dog does, hopefully the dog sits on his own, but if you have to "help" him, the sitting is still a behavior. The consequence is what happens after the dog sits. When you start training a dog you should offer food rewards (consequences) coupled with praise. After the dog learns to associate the food with the praise, you can slowly withdraw the food. Eventually the dog will learn to obey your commands automatically and you will rarely have to offer any sort of reward.

Don't let a dog ignore you. This is an important concept in dog training, and it can be very hard to abide by. However, you simply cannot let your dog obey only when she wants to. Be careful about uttering commands to your dog because you will have to enforce the commands; if you don't, the dog will lose respect for you and stop seeing you as the master. If you call your dog and he doesn't come, you will have to go get the dog and forcefully drag him to where you wanted him to come. This might become a battle of the wills between you and your dog. It is up to you to make sure that you win all battles. Dogs are animals that innately follow a pecking order or a hierarchy of power. You need to make sure that your dog understands that you are the lead dog or the alpha and that they must submit to you at all times.

Only train your dog when you are both attentive. If you are tired or don't feel like working with the dog, don't. By being unenthusiastic or inattentive, you will not help the dog learn. On the other hand, your dog will have times when she is unenthusiastic as well. Only work with your dog when you can both give the training your undivided attention. Stop the session before the dog gets bored. You want your dog to look forward to training and to constantly try to please you.

Be consistent in your commands. If you teach your dog, "drop it" when he releases the toy that he just fetched, use that command anytime you want the dog to drop something. Using different commands, such as "release", "let go", and "leave it" will only confuse the dog. This is important if there is more than one person working with the same dog. Make sure that your dog is getting only one command per action.

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