Three Principles on Dog Obedience Training

Dog obedience training requires the use of some principles which differentiate effective training from training without results. Most dog training and dog behavior schools use these rules. They are the following:

Principle One:Consistency. This covers the use of words, tone, and the actions that accompany the word or command. At the beginning of training you as the dog owner or trainer must make the decision as to what guidelines you will use to teach the dog. A word or a phrase, let's say 'come', does not make sense to a dog. Your dog does not understand our language, nor does he understand or think, the way we do.

So to make the training understandable, you should use the command in a very consistent manner such that the dog will learn to associate the word with the meaning you attach with it. For example, if you are using the command 'come', make sure that everyone in the household use it in a singular manner. The command 'Come' specifically means that the dog should approach the giver of the command and use it in that sense. If he does not come to you, do not force the dog to come to you and punish him for doing so. This would make him attribute the command with the punishment.

What could you expect next?He would not follow the same command since this leads to punishment. The same command used, by all people, must be consistent. For example, if you use the words 'come' make sure everyone in your family uses that word also, not 'come here'.

Principle Two:The hours devoted to training and the words used as command should be kept short. Keep in mind that the attention span of dogs is very short that making them engrossed with a specific activity would be very hard, if not impossible. Combining children with your puppy obedience training is an example of keeping your training sessions short as they would lose interest very quickly, so it is best to move on to the next thing.

Your dog simply does not posses the same amount of interest they had when they started the activity, they become easily bored. The same thing happens in training therefore, it should be limited only to 10 minutes to 15 minutes of regular training.

Principle Three: Never hurt the dog if you want him to be trained, through force or punishment. Also, never force the dog to follow the command if he is not prepared for it or punish a dog for something he did. Don’t push the animal too hard while training.

Your dog has no understanding of your impatience for his lack of learning speed. All he knows is that you are mad. So do not use force as this does not communicate your meaning properly, instead use negative reinforcement. If he knows that he is praised when he does something right, then he should not feel praised when he does not follow a command.

You have to be understanding and patient, especially during your dog obedience training sessions. The outcome will be a very responsive and well trained dog.