With these top tips for Training Your Dog, they become part of your family very quickly, and you’ll never find another creature that is more excited to see you when you get home from work. Humans and dogs have shared a special bond since early in our evolution, and we have played an essential part in each other’s development.
A dog can bring a lot of fun, love, and joy into your life, but owning a dog is a big responsibility, and takes just as much love, effort, and attention as caring for a child. These top tips for training your dog from My Gear Expert would help you train your pet to perfection.
All dog enthusiasts like to think that no-one knows their dog as well as they do; however, no matter if your dog is a new pup or an old soul, some basic training can go a long way. And don’t trust that age-old idiom. Old dogs can absolutely learn new tricks. S try out these top tips for Training Your Dog and do let us know the feedback.
Dog training 101
There is another famous idiom that “a way to a man is through his stomach”, and while there may be nothing solid to back this up, this is not the case with your canine. Your dog will do almost anything for the treat! Of all the top tips for Training Your Dog, here is the most effective one.
Positive Reinforcement Tips for Training Your Dog
All jokes aside, and of all the tips for Training Your Dog, this is the number one thing to master when teaching you dog commands and preferred behaviors. Most dogs training is based around this principle, rewarding behavior you wish to encourage and ignoring and not rewarding negative behavior.
Rewards are not just food and treats; however, your dog is highly intelligent, and your body language and speech has a more significant impact than you may realize.
Rewards can also come in the form of verbal praise and enthusiasm, pats, treats, walks, car rides, ball games and toys.
Always reinforce good behavior with a vocal command like “good boy” or “well done”. Eventually, your physical reactions and vocal responses may work just as well with the treat.
Dogs are just like people, and what works for one dog won’t necessarily work for another, you will have to experiment with all of these ideas to figure which one your furry friend responds to best.
The best tool in your arsenal is going to be patience. learning behaviors and commands takes time, and the more you patiently reinforce your dog’s behavior with conscious, well-planned reward training
Methods of Training
There are methods you can use to aid the use of positive reinforcement training that help you get results faster. When it comes to training a dog, the more techniques you apply, the quicker you will see positive results.
Luring
Luring involves using your treat to guide your dog in the direction you want it to move. An example would be making the dog sit and stay, going to a spot you wish the dog to move too, luring the dog with the treat, and reward the correct behavior.
Remember to make the reward multi-sensory with pats and voice rewards to reinforce the behavior. Luring can easily get into one of the most effective tips for training your dog list.
Free Shaping
Free shaping involves waiting for the behavior to occur without prompting. Examples of this could be staying inside the gate or front door when it’s open without needing the command ‘Stay’.
Reinstate unprompted good behavior with a reward to help solidify it.
Cues and Signals
Your dog responds to everything you do. They are aware of your movements, activities, emotions, moods and habits. You must re-invoice your dog’s rewards with clear and concise body language with verbal commands if you wish to make leeway.
For example, if you wish to reinforce the command ‘sit’, then you may also use the visual command of dropping the hand’s palm down towards the ground as you make the vocal command.
You may even start with over accentuating the visual reinforcement by bringing your hands all the way to the ground from standing. Eventually, you will need the visual aid less and less, and your dog will just respond to the verbal command.
Why Dogs Make Mistakes
Dog’s are just like you in that they can make mistakes, or misunderstand what is expected of them. There are some common reasons your dog may be making mistakes or not being consistent with their behavioral training.
- Lack of understanding
- No reinforcement or motivation
- Lack of relationship between the owner and the dog
- Zero of boundaries or respect
Another reason could be that the dog can’t physically perform the command being asked of it.
Professional Tips for Training Your Dog
A team of researchers has found genetic evidence that suggests dogs may have been domesticated by humans as far back as 32,000 years ago.
If you want to take your dog training to the next level, then finding a professional dog trainer that you resonate with. Structured pet dog training as it exists today was popularized in the 1950s, so a professional dog trainer has a lot to offer your dogs development.
Many cities and local councils have dog training programs set up, and there are many private schools all over the world.
My Gear Expert stocks a wide range of pet training aids, toys, dog muzzles accessories as well as publishing informational material about how to take the best care of your beloved pet. Join our mailing list to get updates, alerts about new content and receive special offers.
