Today people spend $1000's of dollars a year on dog training books or professional trainers. Don't get me wrong, I being one of those aforementioned trainers am not adverse to having someone pay me to help them train their dogs.   However,  a lot of the time they don't really need a trainer they just need to adhere to the three secrets to training dogs to have a wonderful canine companion.  Below you will find these secrets, and you will discover they are not really secrets, we all know these things whether we have studied dog training or have simply lived more then 15 years of life.

 

Secret #1

     Simplicity: Dogs do not have a college education, nor do they sit around all day contemplating Life, the Universe and Everything.  They spend their lives in the moment. They see the world in simple terms; food, not food, pack member, not pack member, comfortable, not comfortable, sit, stay, down, up, etc.

    When teaching your dog a new command, keep it simple.  The more sounds associated with the command the more likely that command is going to become confused with other commands and the dog will not know what you want. "Sit" as apposed to "sit down rover", "Stay" as apposed to "Rover, you stay here"

    Another thing to keep in mind when teaching a behavior is, never attach your dogs name to the command. The name should be taught as a separate command to draw the dogs attention, then a 2 second pause before giving the command.  "Rover = Attention" "Sit = Directive" and there should always be a pause between the two words so that the dog does not associate his name to a given directive or you could end up with the dog sitting when you need him to down, or downing when you needed him to sit.

     One more thing with commands, a big problem people run into is rapid fire commands. The command "Sit" is not the same as the command "sit sit sit sit". If you get frustrated and start rapid firing the command at your dog, he will quickly associate the multi-word command with the action and then will not sit until after he has heard it a few times.

 

Secret #2

     Consistency: Dogs live in a hierarchical world, and those in command need to always say and do the same things all the time or the dog becomes confused.  You can not give the dog total freedom today and strict rules tomorrow then freedom the next day.  He will see this as unstable leadership and will stop following, or worse yet, he will try to lead you. Just like a small child, dogs need consistent structure to follow, unlike children, as they grow older we can not let them start deciding for themselves. 

 

Secret #3

Patience and Repetition:  Conditioning does not happen after one session.  You might get your dog to do a perfect sit in the first session on the first day but it is the patience and repetition that makes it a part of your dog. Consider our own experience in learning things as children, take for instance tying ones shoes. We see it now as a simple act, a one step action "tie the shoe, tie the other shoe" but in reality it is four steps, make the cross, make the bunny ears, cross the bunny ears, pass one under the other and pull tight. And we did not learn this in one sitting, it may have taken three or four or more to consistently get it right. So understand that even if your dog seems to master the sit on the first day, by the second day his level of proficiency will likely have diminished and will need to be strengthened through patience and repetition. 

 

Good luck with your training, most of all have fun and make it fun for your dog.