Dog Training Tips

What are the best dog training tips? Prevent mistakes. Anticipate. Use rewards (dog training treats, play and praise). The best dog training book is not as effective as basic dog obedience training classes.

The top two dog training tips are preventing mistakes (by anticipating mistakes) and using rewards such as praise, play and training treats.

Train your pooch to sit, stay, off or leave it, come, fetch, drop it, and walk - these are basic commands; and, for the most part, necessary ones.

Work on one command at a time and keep working on it for consistency; dogs learn through repetition. As your pet masters the one command, add the next one, and then the next.

Most trainers or obedience classes start with sit, then stay, then leave it, come, fetch, drop it and lastly walk (because if you've properly trained your pooch to this stage then they most often will walk fairly well with you - they've learned to listen and follow you as their leader.

Try to spend at least 15 minutes a day working on a specific command until your pet gets it right; 30 minutes daily is better.

One of the most important dog training tips is to set your pet up for success; this helps to prevent mistakes from happening.

Praising your pooch when he or she has accomplished the training correctly helps to reinforce the right behavior and encourages your pet to continue doing it right.

Since dogs are social animals, it is important to ensure that they are properly socialized at an early age. For instance, as newborns they are part of a litter of other pups. Once you take the pup home (and after the veterinarian has checked out your puppy and given the necessary vaccinations), make sure that you allow ample socialization time with other puppies, dogs and humans. It's very important that this ability to play with other canines is encouraged at an early age - it's part of the 'imprinting' that becomes part of your pet's behavior in later years.

It's important to know how dogs learn in order to properly train them.

Dogs are like humans in the basic way that they learn to do certain things. If you reinforce behaviors and patterns of behavior with rewards like play, praise or treats, your pet will continue to try to do what you want - because good things happen when they do it right.

Practice, repetition and frequency are necessary to drill in the desired pattern. And the opposite is also true: bad behaviors will decrease if bad results follow. Dogs like good tasting, and/or fun, and/or happy rewards (just like us)!

One of the most important dog training tips: positive reinforcement is always the best way to train a pet. Ask any animal trainer, behaviorist or psychologist if the best path is to focus on the positive. Positive reinforcement will yield good results in training your pooch. Ignore dog training tips that promote the negative and that focus on punishing mistakes.

This means that unless you catch your pet in the act of doing a bad behavior, you need to ignore it. Dogs won’t remember what they've done if you try to punish them for it after it's forgotten.

For example if your pooch puts a puddle in the middle of the living room floor and you find the puddle well after the act has been done - it's too late to "punish" them for this. (And punishment is the wrong technique anyways.)

About a minute after they finished it they've forgotten they did it. So bringing them back to the puddle to run their nose through it is not recommended. Why? Because all they know is that you are doing a mean thing by running their nose in a puddle. They don't connect the fact that they made the puddle and you're upset.

The only time you should act in this case is if you catch them in the act itself. Then you can quickly remove them from the area, saying a stern NO, and placing them where it is okay to have a bathroom break.

You help to prevent this by making sure they don't get in a situation that may cause them to do the bad behavior - anticipate their schedule. For example, take them outside for their bathroom breaks frequently. Offer them a lot of praise when they do it right. Positive reinforcement is one of the best dog training tips around.

A number of trainers believe that treats should not be used when training dogs. That's a personal decision. We've always started out with treats during training and then, as the bond between our puppy or new pet and the family grows, we reduce the reliance on treats and reward with praise and play.

By the way, the treats can be healthy ones: our Ridgeback, Harley, loves raw carrots and when we work on a new command or trick we always have some raw carrots or raw apple slices to give her as a reward at the end of a 'work' session. Sometimes we will hide the treats in our backyard and she will 'track' them through the garden (not in my flower bed of course) - this way she's really working for those treats.

A belly scratch or rub and telling your pooch in a happy tone of voice that he or she is a good boy or girl, works!

And play also works well. For example, if we are training for 'come' or 'off' and our pooch succeeds (or improves), we keep practicing until we can see she is becoming tired or bored. Then we pull out a ball or toy and play with her - it's amazing how quickly the tiredness is gone.

If you have established a strong bond with your pet, and if you are recognized as the leader, your pooch will be happy to spend time with you - playing and learning. Make sure it's a fun time for both of you!

Return to top of Dog Training Tips

Return to The Dog Biscuit Home Page.