DOG INFORMATION -DOG TRAINING
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The
Basics Of Training Your Dog
As a new dog owner and trainer, you may find yourself a bit
overwhelmed at first. Do not be discouraged by this. It is quite common and
shows a healthy concern for your pets well being. This being said there are a
few very simple rules to remember when training your pet.
If you can
remember to remain consistent, keep a level head and reward your pet
appropriately then you have won a large part of the battle. What do these three
basics entail? We shall discuss that in the following few
paragraphs.
Dogs are creatures of habit. Every part of their daily life
revolves around an internal schedule and routine. They anticipate the return of
their owners at a certain time of day and know that meal times occur regularly.
Once trained, they will even exhibit certain behaviors to mark these times of
day, such as bringing their empty food dish to their master or waiting near the
door for their owners return. To us humans, this may seem a dull existence but
our canine companions thrive on consistent routines. This fact is very useful to
a new trainer as it can make your job much easier if you use this knowledge.
Why? Because canine obedience training revolves around repetition of certain
actions.
The goal behind obedience training is the idea that a dog will
respond with a certain reaction every time a certain command is given. This
means that every time you tell your dog to sit, this will be exactly what will
happen. To make use of the animal’s instinctive behavior in this regard, one
must remember to be consistent with training. Go thru the routines exactly the
same way every time with no variation until they are well in hand. If you tell
your dog to sit, make certain your pet does so before moving on to the next
point, even pushing their hindquarters down if necessary to accomplish this end.
This rigid consistency will go a long way towards achieving a well-trained
pet.
Let’s now move along to the next point of keeping a level head,
which is also one of the more difficult points. At the end of a long day of
work, you are tired, the dog just doesn’t seem to be responding and tempers can
flare quite easily. You may decide this dog is just one of the few who can’t be
trained or that you just don’t have the skills.
You might be feeling completely discouraged by a seeming lack of
interest on the dogs part to learn even the simplest of behaviors. You will most
likely encounter this scenario more than once in your venture at dog training.
Just take this moment as a queue that the lesson is done for the time being and
retire to some less strenuous amusement such as a hot cup of tea. Dogs are like
children and will find the ways to irritate you for amusement it seems. Just
like children, they take time and patience in teaching anything worth training
them for. Rome wasn’t built in a day and your dog won’t become a well trained
champion over night either.
Now let’s move on to the third major point
in being a successful trainer. The reward for doing a behavior or trick
correctly. This is a very important part of the training process as it builds
your relationship with your pet and shows them your appreciation for their good
behaviors. Again consistent treatment is important in training and a reward
should be given every time a performance of a given command is executed
properly.
This is not saying to give your dog a food treat every time. While
an occasional tidbit of food is a great reward doing so consistently is not.
This would result in an unhealthy pet and be counterproductive to your training
efforts. Rather than doing this, offer other forms of reward such as rich verbal
praise, play with a favorite toy or petting your dog to show affection. These
rewards will enhance your relationship with your pet and make future training
sessions even easier as your pet will anticipate these rewards and want to
please you.
If these simple steps are kept in mind, your pets training
should be an easy task with many rich rewards. Enjoy your pet and make your bond
stronger while training with these three principles.