Tips, Techniques, and Tools for Success
Having a dog comes with the responsibility of taking good care of it. Training is essential for a dogs happiness. Not only your dogs happiness but your and your family’s happiness as well. A well-behaved dog is an amazing contribute to your life. In this small dog training guide i will give you some tips, techniques and tools to help you get started.
Understanding the Basics of Dog Training
Training your dog is not just about teaching tricks. It’s teaching both of you how you can communicate with each other. Show each other respect, as dogs and humans have a different way of looking at respect. It also teaches your dog boundaries and how to be submissive to them.
Proper training will reduce a dog’s bad behavior, it will create a stronger bond between you and your dog and not but not least it creates a certain level of safety. Making sure you know how to handle a dangerous situation with your dog.
Positive Reinforcement: The Best Training Method
Positive reinforcement training is more about rewarding good behavior instead of punishing bad behavior. This method is now being used by almost all professionals and is therefor the recommended method. Mainly because of it’s effectiveness and kindness towards the dogs.
The 3 pillars of positive reinforcements are:
- Reward good behavior right after your dog obeys a command. By giving your dog treats, praise or a toy.
- Avoid punishment, as punishment can be very harsh on a dog. This can cause fear and anxiety and will decrease the effectiveness of your dog training.
- Consistency is key, it’s all about regular practice and staying consistent with your commands and praises.
It’s good to learn about positive reinforcement training and which kind of trainings you could achieve with them. There’s loads!!
Here are some good online courses I’ve found that could help you get started with the basic training directly from home.
The good dog everyday program is a low entry online dog training course, for new pups, but also for older buddy’s who just have some bad behaviors sticking around.
If you would rather directly start with a more intensive training i would suggest the K9 Training Institute and follow their longer program to give your dog a head start! Currently they have a free workshop you could follow to see if it something for you. Click here if you want to know more about it.
Common Dog Training Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
There are a lot of mistakes you could make training our dogs, it’s important to be cautious of this before starting to train your dog.
A few of the most common mistakes made are
- Using to many commands. Stick to one command per exercise and give your dog enough time to learn that single command before mixing it with other commands.
- Impatience. Training your dog can be very frustrating when it doesn’t go fast enough, this is my own biggest mistake i still make. Your dog can do a exercise correct 10 times and the next 20 times they can do it wrong. It’s important to keep your patience.
- Not being consistence. Don’t switch to other method while trying something out. This will confuse your dog and it’s possible that your dog starts ‘guessing’ what you mean in order to gain a treat.
Dog Training Tools You Need
Some tools are just necessary when training a dog, like dog treats, leash or harness. Treat provide the reward for the efforts that your dog is giving and the leash creates a controllable environment for you to manage your dog.
If not necessary some tools could really help you improve the training, like a clicker or a whistle. With these items you can pin point the moment your dog is making the right decision immediately and give the treat after that. This removes the focus on the reward and stimulates focusing on the exercise instead.
Other tools are there to make everything more fun, but they always have a second meaning behind it. Like different Puzzle Toys or Interactive Toys for your dog, they will stimulate them mentally and while they are being occupied with their puzzle, you get to do something you would like to do or actually need to do…
Advanced Dog Training Techniques
Once you’ve mastered the basic training of your dog, you could consider going deeper into the training. There’s a lot of different options out there. Thing about next level obedience training, agility training, service dog training, the list keeps going. There’s so much you could achieve with your dog if you get started and be consistent. The sky is the.. I mean the amount of treats you could afford is the limit!
Conclusion
Training your dog is no easy task, but a very rewarding all throughout the journey. It will strengthen the bond between you and your best furry friend.
Using methods like the positive reinforcement method and guidance from professionals will give your dog a head start.
Starts with the basics, don’t lose your patience but most of all enjoy the process of seeing your dog learn more and more.
Hopefully this guide has been of help to you, and i hope you will take action to train your dog, for both of your benefits.
Have a wonderful day!
