Dog Training
Tips for training your dog
Dog training doesn't have to be left to obedience schools; with a little education, patience and commitment, you can train your own dog to do anything, from following basic commands and performing tricks to tracking scents and guarding your home. Completing dog training on your own can save you a lot of money you'd otherwise have handed over to an obedience trainer, all while laying the foundations for a lifelong bond between you and your pet.
Dog Training Supplies
At minimum, you'll need a training lead, dog treats and housebreaking aids and pads to get started. Training leads are special leashes made from heavy-duty but soft cotton, designed to help you exercise corrective authority over your dog without hurting it. They're an essential aid for socializing your pet in public places, and should be combined with a chain dog training collar to ensure you don't pinch your pet's skin or pull its fur while you've got it leashed.
Housebreaking pads minimize the mess your dog will make indoors, and scent-based housebreaking aids help guide your pet to appropriate places when it needs to relieve itself and prevent it from relieving itself in the same place twice. Dog treats reinforce positive behavior, and many experts recommend you include them as part of any dog training regimen.
Strategies for Training Your Dog
Understanding how your canine thinks is essential to effective obedience dog training. Remember, dogs are pack animals, and they innately aim to please the pack leader: you. If your dog does something wrong, it is essential to make it understand the connection between the undesirable behavior and its end result right away. Say, for example, your dog relieves itself on the carpet and the mess went undiscovered for half an hour, and by the time you find it, your dog is gnawing away on a toy bone. If you scold it at that moment, the dog will think that gnawing the toy bone is an undesirable behavior. This is why you must bring the dog back to the site of the mess and make it understand beyond a doubt that the mess on the rug is the reason it's in trouble.
Communication is key. Everything from hunting dog training to bird dog training is built on effective communication between you and your dog. In general, handlers should aim to confine communication to four basic messages during the obedience training period:
- Rewarding correct behavior. Giving your dog a reward for doing what it was supposed to do will reinforce desirable behaviors.
- Continue. This lets your pet know that it is currently engaged in desirable dog behavior, and that it will earn a reward if it continues.
- No reward. Use this strategy to tell your dog that what it's currently doing is not correct and that it will not earn a reward for continuing.
- Punishment. Penalize gross instances of incorrect behavior by punishing the dog.
Understanding canine psychology will shorten the duration of the dog training period. If you're interested in learning more, a visit to your local bookstore will yield a great deal of detailed information.
