What Are Some Vital Dog Training Tips That You Must Follow?

Once you bring a dog home, it becomes a part of your family. It will eat, sleep and have fun with the family members. This is why you need to train them to listen to you, which can be done with consistent training.

What Are Some Vital Dog Training Tips?

There are some vital dog training tips which, if followed, will not just train your dog to perform certain actions but also help increase the bond between you and your canine companion.

1. Patience is a Virtue

It is not easy to develop behaviors in a dog. Sometimes a dog may learn quickly, but at times it can take months. You can get impatient and irritated; however, you must not give up. With repetition and persistence, you can achieve success.

Remember that your dog doesn’t speak your language. They try to understand what you are trying to tell them and what you want them to do, but it will take time. You need to work with them patiently to make your objective clear. You must be fair to them by giving them enough time to understand what you expect from them. Be patient!

2. Use Simple Language

The most frustrating part of dog training is when we forget that dogs cannot understand or speak human language till we make them familiar with words and phrases. So, in the beginning, stick to teaching them single words such as – stay, lie, come, sit, etc. They need to be taught these words thoroughly before you move to teaching them something more difficult.

So, if you begin with something like “If you want a cookie, then you need to lay”, is going blah, blah to them. Just use the word ‘Sit’ and treat them with a cookie. You can use more phrases once they get familiar to commands but till then stick to single and simple words.

3. Pick the Right Training Strategy

The right strategy of training is the one that you are comfortable with in learning yourself and then teaching your furry friend. There are many ways of training the dogs that are quite similar to parenting techniques. Some such training models/methods are – Model-rival dog training method, Alpha dog training method, Reward-based dog training method, Relationship-based dog training techniques etc. Go through some of the training methods in depth and pick one that you think you can understand and use it to train your dog.

4. Short Training Sessions

Dogs and especially have a very short attention span. While the dogs would be ok to be trained for about 20 minutes, the puppies will not last more than a few minutes. The puppy will burn out or experience training fatigue. This is somewhat similar to the way we feel when we sit for long hours in the class. Our brain gets tired and so does theirs. Here are some signs that you will notice:

• They will lose interest in whatever you are doing together
• They will take long to respond to whatever you are saying
• You may entice them with treat or toys, but after some time these goodies also will not interest them.

So, make your training sessions shorter and help your dogs or puppies keep up with the teachings that you are trying to give them.

5. Use Commands with Training Games

Training should be short, but you can use throughout the day to teach them through games. Make it fun for them while they learn. There are so many cool indoor games that you can play with them, such as obstacle course, hide and seek, fetch game, find the toy, etc. Include commands with the games, for instance, “Jump” in the obstacle game.

6. Never Punish Your Dog

If you are rubbing your dog’s nose in waste, using shock collar, hitting them, or shouting on them for not following command is abusing them. They might be terrified and forget whatever you have taught them earlier. Think about a baby being punished for spilling food or not eating a vegetable – they panic and cry. Punishment should never be used to teach your dog.

Using these tips will help you in the training sessions with your dog.