Dog Training

When it comes to training dogs you have a few things you need to take into consideration. There are also a few things that you need to teach yourself in order to successfully train any type of dog. As well you know that dogs can not speak any spoken language. However, despite this disposition, there is still a way that dogs seem to be able to communicate with us. It’s through both body language and voice tones. Dogs will never be able to understand what we say to them. When you train a dog they will act in which ever way gets them the most positive attention, because dogs love positive attention. Any type of dog will quickly distinguish the difference between positive and negative attention. It’s up to you to decide where the line between positive and negative attention lies because the dog will be getting used to you and your voice commands and the urgency of it depending on the pitch of your voice and your body language. Telling a dog no in a low and deep voice when he is doing something it is not supposed to will eventually work. For now though, especially if you are just now starting to train your dog, it will take some time for your dog to get used to. Repetition is an extremely important factor when it comes to training dogs. If you are praising it every time it does a ‘good job’ and disciplining it when it does a ‘bad job’ then your dog may never be able to comprehend the difference between the two.

So you want to teach your dog to do a few ‘tricks’ huh? If you keep what was mentioned above in mind then you should cut the problems you may have in half. There is one more major thing you need to ask yourself before you try training your dog. How are you going to reward your dog for successfully doing a task? A reward system should be worked out before you even begin. The two most common ways are by using treats or just by verbal praises. Both ways are commonly used and some may say one works better than the other. When it comes to deciding which reward system you want to use, please consider that it is always a lot easier to train dogs when they are puppies. Puppies tend to learn faster by using verbal phrases and older dogs may only respond to treats. Either way, try them both out on your dog and she which it responds to the best.

Before teaching your dog any tricks ask yourself a few quick questions. How difficult is the command? You don’t want your dog to fetch the newspaper as its first trick. That is a little to much to begin with. Stick with easy commands like look or stay and sit. Now even a command as easy as sit or stay could prove to be a difficult thing to teach your dog. Keep a close eye on your dog and if it does the command for even just a short few seconds, reward it. If you managed to get it to sit on command for a few seconds then spend some time teaching to increase the amount of time it will remain in the sit position. Keep a firm tone when commanding a dog and don’t mix up your body language, remember repetition is key.

When first begging, make sure that there are as few distractions as possible. Over time you should increase the amount of distraction around your training area. One of the most important things you will have to understand is that although dogs are not human, they will still get stressed out or bored if training sessions go on for some time. It is always best to keep training sessions short and sweet and always end it on a positive note.