A lot of people think that training a dog is a difficult process. Some of them believe that it is impossible to train particular breeds. These two opinions are incorrect. The fact is that each and every dog is trainable. Dog training doesn’t necessarily need to be difficult. It can be pretty interesting. Particular breeds are much easier to teach. The statement that some dogs cannot be trained is completely false. Here you can find many important things about training your dog properly.
Rules for evaluating results
Proper dog training is when you successfully hand over the core exercises within an average timeframe.
Furthermore, it should be done in a permanent way. This means that your dog should remember the learned skills after some time.
Briefly, the basic rules for evaluating success are:
– The time spent in training
– The level of proficiency
– The time your dog remember the learned skills
If it takes too much time or effort to learn particular skills or if it forgets those skills quickly, it does not need to be a sign of a wrong approach. There might be two reasons for this. The first one is your competence, knowledge, and commitment. The second one is dog’s natural preferences. Particular dogs tend to learn better and faster compared to others.
Quick start is a key
There are several things a dog can learn only as a puppy. This indicates the possibility of learning even at the earliest age. Dogs older than six months will find it hard to learn some things. They are incredibly progressive creatures and are starting to learn as soon as they get born. Because of this, a young puppy is usually capable of surviving without a parent. For a human at a very early age, this would be impossible.
The perfect time for starting with training is at the young age when a puppy is getting to know the fundamentals. The skills that you are going to teach it will be adopted as the basic life rules. As such, they will be the permanent part of its character. A bit older dog can also learn the basics, but you will have to put a lot of time and effort in this process.
Many people have a bad experience teaching their dog basics during their older age. However, no dog owner should blame their pet. Instead, they should have started the training process timely.
The proper way of disciplining
Once you start up with basic dog exercises, you will figure out that the majority of skills can be taught only with appropriate rewarding and punishing strategy.
Attention is the most effective reward for your dog. However, the lack of care is a way of punishment.
To teach your dog a particular exercise or behavior, you will have to simulate it. Whenever it completes the action successfully, reward it with a small piece of food. If it fails, you should punish it by not giving food. Verbal praises are an additional reward for your dog. It will not understand their meaning, but it will be able to feel the emotions.
Whenever your dog displays a bad behavior, and you stop paying attention, it will immediately sense your reaction and figure out the reason behind the lack of your attention. Therefore, it will be forced to change its behavior to get your attention again. This rule works pretty great if your dog is young.
You should never use hits as a way of punishment because a dog will not understand it in that way. It will just see it as violence. If your dog tends to display rude behavior, it would be much better if you try to find a method to teach it how to behave properly. Being physically aggressive will make things worse.
Patience
Patience is a crucial element during the whole process of training your dog. You must know that dogs need more time than humans to figure out and learn basic things. Some people think that they need to be tough to make the training successful. However, this is not true because the soft and kind approach is proven to give better results.
Persistence
Another key feature for successful dog training is persistence. Do not quit too quickly and easily. Sometimes you may try to teach your dog a particular exercise and then just stop if it fails to learn it immediately. Instead, repeat the same action a few times until you make sure that that your dog overcame it.
Consistency
Once you apply a particular action during the training, make sure that you are consistent with your method of rewarding or punishing. This way your dog will hopefully understand its meaning and consequences. Never give several demands at the same time. It will just confuse a dog and make things harder to learn.
Apart from these tips, you may want to do additional research to get more information on this subject before doing anything else. If you fail in performing a successful training, do not hesitate to contact experts in dog training field.
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