Last Updated: 1 year ago
When it comes to dog obedience training, it can be difficult to know who to turn to for advice and how to customize a training plan for your particular dog.
Obedience training is often done by professionals (trainers and the like) simply because many people give up.
But you can do your own basic dog obedience training if you use this guide. You just need the right dog obedience training equipment and knowledge, like this guide. You can also get a great deal of good information from dog obedience training books including advanced dog obedience training techniques.
These dog obedience training tips will allow you to make a plan for your obedience training and decide just exactly how you will proceed.
Advantages Of Obedience Training
If you have ever wondered just what the advantages of dog obedience training are, you are not alone. People who are starting training sessions often wonder if it’s even worth it to train their dog, especially considering how hard it is.
The truth is, you really should train your dog following these seven steps because there are some major advantages. Take a look at some of these benefits of dog obedience training.
- Your dog is safer: You might not think so, but your dog is actually safer with obedience training than without. That’s because your dog will respond to commands after training and that might just prevent an incident like running out in front of a car.
- Your dog is happier: It seems hard to believe, but training your dog will actually result in more happiness for your dog. Since he is able to understand and be understood by you, he is able to do more things that please you and that will please your dog in return.
- You are happier too: When you are able to communicate with your dog, you have less stress and don’t get frustrated nearly as often. This means that your happiness will improve the more you develop the relationship between you and your dog and further his or her training.
- You get to take your dog more places: You probably don’t take your dog with you every time you want to, since untrained dogs can be difficult to keep under control. Obedience training will allow you to spend more time with your dog and feel good about taking him out in public.
The Seven Steps Of Obedience Training
Train Yourself
You need to make sure that you are ready for training before you teach your dog a single command.
This means: establishing yourself as the pack leader, approaching your training sessions without emotion and learning about dog behavior before you begin.
Introduce Rewards
You want to introduce your dog to the concept of rewards. The best way to do this is through clicker training or another marker tool.
Whenever the dog does something that you like, click and give a treat. You are introducing your dog to the idea that some behaviors earn rewards and the best way to do it is marker training with treats.
Choose Commands
You need to choose your commands as well.
The commands that you decide upon will be your cue for the dog to perform a behavior so you want to ensure that they are easily remembered, but unique enough so that your dog doesn’t mistake the speech around him for commands, which will confuse him.
Start Training Sessions
Now, start your training sessions. All you do is take five to fifteen minutes each day and give commands.
If your dog does the behavior, starts the behavior or even looks as if they want to, reward them with a treat. Don’t punish bad behavior. Instead, reward good behavior. Your dog will get the idea.
Train in New Environments
Your next step will be to start training in new environments.
You don’t want your dog to only follow your commands inside the house or in the front yard, you want to make sure that he knows that you want him to exhibit these behaviors no matter where you are.
The transition from Treats to Praise
Eventually, you want your dog to only get treats on special occasions – like learning new behaviors.
Transition them to praise after they have learned the behaviors. They will enjoy praise from you almost as much as they enjoy a puppy snack anyway.
Reinforce Regularly
Make sure that you reinforce the training regularly. Just like with humans, dogs will forget things that they don’t use.
Try to do something each day to remind them of their training. If they do seem to have forgotten the behavior you may not be reinforcing it often enough and you may have to go back and reteach it.
My Recommendations
So, training is great. There are lots of advantages to training your dog, like keeping him safe from traffic and other hazards and showing him off to your friends. You can train a dog easily if you follow the steps above.
There are definitely some tools that will help you be a better trainer. Dog clickers, dog whistles and crates are all excellent training tools. Crates can help you potty train a dog and dog clickers or whistles can act as markers for teaching and exhibiting behaviors.
There are lots of books on training as well and some of them have been written by people who really know their stuff like Cesar Millan (TV’s The Dog Whisperer).
Another great author and respected expert is Patricia McConnell and her books are quite useful as well, particularly The Puppy Primer.
These books can teach you an amazing amount about the world of dogs and how to correctly interpret their behavior.
Dogs use everything from body language to vocalizations to communicate and having the right tools such as crates, pads, clickers and of course, dog training books will give you a huge edge. Here are some of the best training tools out there that represent the world of dog training products available.
