Tips On Dog Training - Don’t Do These Things
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Dog obedience training is a crucial part of your relationship with your dog. A well trained dog is a credit to you as the owner and will give your pet confidence in social situations and help him fit into the structure of your family. So all dogs should receive some kind of training and many people opt to do it themselves. This makes sense from a financial sense as proper lessons can be expensive. It is also less of a commitment when you are doing the training yourself as you can do it when you want or at weekends. However many people are less than successful in the training partly because the inherent flexibility of doing it yourself equates to unfocused training or because they fail to do enough research into dog training methods. This article will list five common traps that people fall into when embarking on obedience training their dog.
1.As I alluded to in the introduction, the biggest cause of failure is not being committed. I guess this is hardly a revelation as lacking commitment in anything new that you are doing will result in a lack of success. Staying committed is about focusing on what motivated you in the first place and being disciplined.
Renew in your head why you began to train your pet. Imagine the satisfaction that you will get from having a stronger relationship with your dog than merely playing fetch with him from time to time. Consider the peace of mind that you will get knowing that your dog will be well behaved in the wider community.
Committed also includes having the energy to learn. Find out more about your breed of dog. Investigate new training methods and determine what works well for your dog. Never stop learning about your pet or the breed of your dog. This will improve your relationship with him and give you inspiration when it comes to training.
2.Being inconsistent. The main reason why this might occur is because you will get bored and want to move onto another command. Remember to go at your dog’s pace of learning. Whether it is boring or otherwise you have to repeat the same command over and over until your dog understands. Start with the easy commands to begin with. Only teach one command at a time as shifting from one command to another will only confuse the dog. Having said this, your dog will also get bored from time to time so keep the sessions short.
3. Using negative reinforcement rather than positive reinforcement. Never hit or strike a dog if it fails to do a command as you liked or failing to understand what commanded. This is not only cruel but will confuse the animal. Pain will not motivate it to act in a natural way. Rather give it positive reinforcement through encouragement and even a reward. Soon your dog will want to be successful and this will make training easier in the long run.
4.Not open to new ideas. Don’t stick to one idea rigidly merely because it was recommended by the dog whisperer or some other celebrity. Always see techniques as a framework to follow or disregard according to results. Remember that dogs are as individual as humans and some will respond better to one technique than another. The more you work with your dog the more you will understand his preferred teaching methods.
5. Strive to get a balance between keeping the training interesting but stay consistent. Avoid making the training too predictable and dull. Think of things that can spice it up from time to time. This will always depend on how your dog responds to new environments but why not try moving to different locations for the training. Maybe try a touch of playing before the lesson begins and then keep the lesson short. Mix the peripheral things up but try to keep the core one command per lesson consistent.
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February 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I like your ideas and recommendation. I noticed a common mistake however, which is an important one to clarify.
Adding pain is not negative reinforcement. Negative means taking something away, reinforcement makes a behavior stronger. So an example of negative reinforcement in dog training would be the ear pinch: you STOP (take away) pinching the ear when the dog opens his mouth.
What you are describing when you are talking about hitting a dog is actually called positive punishment. You are ADDING something to make the behavior occur less often.
Check out a psychology 101 text for the definitions of positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement. The definitions are critical in the field of dog training.