According to experts, obedience training is the foundation of your relationship with your beloved pet dog. Through effective training, you will be able to properly communicate with your pet and at the same time, your dog will be able to understand what you want from him or her. Dog training can be done to puppies and even older dogs. There is no age limit when it comes to obedience training.
Training Tips during Obedience Training
It is important to follow some useful tips during the training session of your beloved dog so that the session will be fully taken advantage of by you and your pet. One of the basic things to learn on how to train a dog for the first time is to keep the lessons short and concise. This is important because dogs have short attention spans very much like children. Sessions generally should be completed within 15 minutes every day. During that time span, you can reinforce recently learned tricks or introduce a new one. Performing 5 to 15 repetitions of each trick within the time frame is enough to drill the lesson into the dog’s consciousness.
Another consideration before teaching any command is to choose a word or a phrase that should be used consistently. Your dog will get confused if you shout his or her name instead of the actual command in the moment of a certain situation. Let us say if the command to stop bad behaviour is “Halt!” but instead you say “Halt Baxter!” or just “Baxter!”, the dog will not be able to grasp what you want done and you will be ignored completely. Dogs cannot understand the human language so during trainings, decide the exact word or group of words you want to use and ask your family to use the words consistently infront of the dog. This way, your dog will get used to the command and be able to respond to it in a consistent manner.
To prevent your dog from getting confused, it is also essential that you teach each skill one at a time. In crate training, it is not enough to let the dog learn the command but you must also train him or her to keep still until you tell her to move, keep still despite the distractions around or keep still even while you move away. Your dog must also learn to adapt to different environments, that wherever you both are, your dog will be able to respond correctly every time you give a command.
Practice Obedience Training Everywhere and with Everyone
Like previously stated, it is important to train your dog in different environments so that he or she will be able to respond to your commands correctly. Dogs have a specific learning capacity which means that if you are the only one to give out the command to sit in the living room only, your dog might interpret your command as applicable only when you will be saying it inside the living room.
Indeed, practice makes perfect when it comes to obedience training. It will take time and effort for your dog to learn the skills needed to strengthen your relationship. As a dog owner, you should remain patient and firm when teaching your dog new tricks.
Follow this guide for crate training.
Crate Training Techniques 