5 Tips for Successfully Training Your Dog
This post is brought to you as a part of the Dog Days of Summer Campaign, hosted by the folks at dog training collars. Summer is a wonderful time of year for humans and their furry best friends!
I begged and begged my parents for a dog and finally when I was 11 years old we went to the SPCA and adopted a cute yellow furred puppy. As a part of the deal I had to promise to help care of and train him. He was a cute puppy but also a very mischievous little dog. He chewed everything, he ran away, he pulled when we went for walks and he peed ALL OVER THE HOUSE was in desperate need of training. I had no idea how much work it would be to train a puppy. Fortunately, my mom helped and here are a few tips she shared with me that helped my mischievous little pup into a well behaved dog.
5 Tips for Training Your Dog
1. Tackle One Area At A Time – Don’t try to conquer all areas of dog training at once. Set out to master one area at a time, this helps keep your dog from becoming confused or overwhelmed. Also, if you try to do it all at once you will most certainly get burnt out and won’t be consistent which leads into tip number two.
2. Be Consistent -When training your do be consistent with your expectations, commands and rewards. If you change your commands, use a different tone of voice for a command, ignore bad behavior or forget to reward good behavior you are setting up your dog for failure. Be a good teacher and you will see advances in training your dog.
3. Reward Good Behavior – It’s easy to scold your dog when he makes a mistake, and while it’s important to address bad behaviors it’s also important to reward good behavior.
4. Set Aside Time to Train – In addition to your every day routine set aside a little time specifically for “training”. Repeating commands over and over again and giving a reward for good behavior engraves good behavior into your dog and it will eventually become second nature.
5. Ask for Help – If you have a particularly stubborn dog or don’t have the time to devote to a lengthy training process I’d suggest attending Dog Obedience School or hiring a professional to give you tips and help train your dog. Spending a little money to successfully train your dog may eventually save you money (think ruined furniture or carpets.)
We took my dog to Dog Obedience School and he failed the first time but we worked with him at home and took him again and he passed! We would spend time each day working with him on his training and were very mindful to give him a treat when he was obedient. Before he was trained people told us he was a lost cause and couldn’t be trained but we were persistent and he ended up being a very well-behaved dog that could even do a few fun tricks!
Having an obedient dog isn’t just to make life easier for you as a dog owner but it’s for the safety of you, your dog and others. So please take the time to properly train your dog.
