5 Top Training Tips For You And Your Dog
By Terry Stephens

1. Do Not Assume Your Dog Understands You.

Dogs are not humans and they learn in different ways, they do not have an understanding of right and wrong, they are totally guided in this respect by you. If you praise after a positive action, your dog understands that that is good. A negative responds lets your dog know that whatever action he just took was bad. Your dog will now want to carry out the actions that result in praise whilst avoiding the bad that result in a negative response from you.

2. Make Positive Reinforcement Your Favoured Training Tool.

Concentrate on positives to train your dog, favour the positive training method. That is spending more time praising and awarding treats than you do with negative reactions to bad behaviour. You can do this even if your dog is not cooperating, for instance if your dog is not working well and being it is naughty you can ignore them, turn away from them and just plain ignore the bad behaviour, when they stop the bad behaviour you can reward with treats and praise.

3. Use Negative Reinforcement When Necessary.

If your dog is doing something naughty and you are there to catch them in the act then a firm NO, or whatever your chosen negative is, will let them know you are displeased and they will stop. It may take time but eventually they will understand that that particular behaviour makes you upset and they will stop.

4. Be Consistent & Be Timely.

Award praise consistently and timely, if your dog is doing good things then praise him immediately as if you wait until they stop they may associate the praise with stopping giving them the wrong message. Equally do not chastise your dog for something they had done previously, they may associate the negative with something positive and stop doing the good. If they have done bad things whilst you were not there then you must ignore that incident and be on the alert to try and catch them at it.

5. Patience Pays Off.

You must be patient with your dog, some dogs like retrievers, collies, spaniels and many more respond quickly to training and will surprise you at how quickly they grasp what you are telling them, but even these can be stubborn on various issues and you must be Patient, Consistent and use the positive and negative reinforcement techniques to help your dog understand you. Regardless of dog breed and your dog training experience these techniques, applied diligently will work. Even the most stubborn of terriers will become compliant with patience.

One thing that it is important to understand when attempting to train your dog or puppy and that is the understanding that its not just dog training but also owner training. As much as you need your dog to understand you must also invest time in understanding your dog. A dogs body language will let you really get to know hen or her but that is a subject for another article or see my website TheDogTrainingFiles.com for more on this. For now it is enough to be aware that you need training too and view it as a joint learning experience.

Im Terry Stephens, Dog Training Expert and Dog Lover. I would Like to give you free dog training advice at my Dog Training website http://www.TheDogTrainingFiles.com

Yours
Terry

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