How to Train a Dog - Obedience Training Secrets
Dog obedience training simply refers to training your pooch to be obedient. Everyone loves to be obeyed, be it by friends, family and our pets. It’s such a pleasure having our canine friends do exactly what we want them to do because it makes one feel like a royalty and it also means that we’ll together have a fulfilling interaction. Dog obedience training comprises of teaching them the simple commands such as come, stay, sit, heel and more. Dog obedience training can be undertaken in two main approaches. There’s a school of thought that uses negative reinforcement tactics such as electric shocks and choke collars, while the second school of thought uses positive reinforcement techniques such as rewards and simple clicker. Which of the two approaches works best? It got to be positive reinforcement and here is why. The beauty of dog training using positive reinforcement tactics Negative reinforcement causes fear, making your puppy afraid of you as well as others. Fear results in a stressful relationship with your dog that is characterized by unpredictable behavior and aggression. These negative tactics make your dog bark excessively, destroy your property and bite people, putting your young ones, visitors, and strangers at risk. Although negative reinforcement techniques seem to do the job in the short term, they are highly unpredictable. However, the best results from your dog obedience training are the ones that ensure that the behavior of your dog is as repeatable and as predictable as possible. Positive reinforcement dog training builds a long lasting bond between you and your dog. This lifetime relationship makes sure that you can always expect constant and well-mannered behavior from your dog. The use of a clicker has come to be a very efficient and effective dog obedience training method. Clicker dog training method uses a tool, the clicker. This tool is used to tell the dog when s/he has had a desirable behavior or done a right thing. The sound from the clicker signals to the dog that s/he has done right. The clicking sound needs to come hand in hand with positive reinforcements such as food rewards and verbal praise, making the method an incredibly efficient way of training your dog to act the way you want to. The dog will associate the clicking sound and rewards with the desired action and will eventually obey yours every command including come, speak, stay, sit, lay down, play dead, roll over, heel, attack, fetch and beautiful any other trick or behavior that you may want.Prior to getting started
with the clicker dog training method, it is important that you get conversant with the following dog training secrets that will ensure that you get the most out of your dog obedience training sessions. Don’t Punish Your Pooch for Bad Behavior
Positive reinforcement does not include punishment, threats or fear inducement. While this appears to be contrary to the usual training procedures, punishments and threats such as hitting, yelling and timeouts are counterproductive and almost always yield more damage than good. Punishments and threats are the perfect recipes for a stressful, destructive, fearful and anti-social dog. Instead of punishing bad behaviors, fix them by rewarding the desirable behavior. It’s undeniable that it may take little longer to get the dog on track. However, the rewards are perfectly worth it, plus the impact of the training will be long lasting so you don’t have to keep retraining the dog. Schedule Training Establishing training sessions and making them an indispensable part of your day to day life helps to make your canine companion familiar with what to expect. The dog will actually look forward to this period with you. This is especially so if training sessions are scheduled just before meal time as they will be more driven towards learning the obedience behavior that you’ll be training them. Maintain short Obedience Training Sessions Your dog only has a limited attention span when it comes to chasing after a cat or a ball. Actually, dogs lose focus in these fun activities as well. This necessitates that dog obedience training sessions be kept short – about five minutes – a period in which your dog can remain engaged and attentive. If you drag the training sessions on for too long, your dog is likely to lose interest in the entire training program. Practice using the tools prior to using them on your dog The tool used in clicker dog training is simple in that it is only pinched to make a clicking sound, but using it isn’t as straightforward. Since the clicking sound is the signal for correct obedience behavior, it has to be accurate. If the sound comes after the dog has done the desired behavior, s/he may not
identify the association. It is better to click as the dog is doing the desired behavior. In order to use the clicker accurately, you need to practice. Organize Your Obedience Training Prior to beginning your dog obedience training program, you need to plan and get organized by considering precisely what you want the pooch to do. For instance, it is imperative that you deliberate on the following issues if you’re teaching your dog how to sit: ∑ ∑ ∑
Consider what you’ll do to prompt the command, whether you’ll give the dog a physical cue, a verbal cue or both. Consider the duration of his/her sitting Consider whether you want your puppy to sit wherever s/he’s standing no matter where you’re positioned or it has to be in front of you.
The importance of this is that you’ll click and reward him or her for the progress done towards achieving the desired behavior. For instance, if you want the dog to sit until you release him/her, you will have to teach your dog two commands. However, the initial step involves just getting the dog understand the sitting concept. Whenever the dog sits, you’ll click and reward. Finally as you progress, you’ll add another cue, which is the release command. This progression can continue until you achieve the behavior that you want.
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