Training your dog is a lot like studying foreign languages. The first one is very difficult and confusing, the second one a little easier, and so on. With a little time and a lot of patience it can be done. Armed with only a leash, a few treats to act as “rewards” for good behavior, a quiet secluded spot, and 10 or 15 minutes a day, results can be positive.
The following list of training tips are very useful and have proven effective with all breeds:
- Schedule your dog’s lesson everyday at the same time and in the same place. Repetition is one of the key elements in training.
- Be enthusiastic. Make training fun. Good memories aren’t easily forgotten.
- Be authoritive, insist on a higher standard of obedience during lessons than at ordinary times. Don’t ask your dog to do something, tell him firmly.
- Use your tone of voice to help get your message across, a clear firm voice for commands, an enthusiastic one for encouragement, a cheerful one for approval, and a minor, low tone for disapproval. Nothing is accomplished by a loud voice or yelling.
- Start each lesson by reviewing what your dog already knows, and praise him for his good performance, even for his well-meaning efforts. Praise him for the slightest thing that he does right.
- Be as concentrated and observant during training sessions as you expect your dog to be. Then you will be able to anticipate his moves, to encourage him when he is on the right track, and to discourage mistakes before he makes them.
- Never proceed to difficult tasks until your dog has mastered the more elementary ones. It is much more useful for you to be certain that he will obey three or four simple commands than it is to hope that he will obey ten or twenty if he happens to feel like it.
- Follow each lesson with a moment of play then rest.
- Persuade the other members of your family to give the identical commands and to use the same terms of encouragement if they want to help with the training.
- Don’t let your dog forget what he has learned, nor confine his obedience to lesson times. Use the commands he has been trained to obey whenever possible. That is what training is all about, to teach your dog good behavior and manners by repetition.
Randy Jones and his partner Brent Jones have been in the pet industry for a long time. Recently they formed Joncopets.com. On the site, customers can read articles about anything pets as well as shop for the latest designer dog clothes, dog collars, dog beds and more for their best friend. Feel free to check out the site at http://www.joncopets.com.
Written By: Randy Jones
