Three Principles of Dog Obedience Training

Dogs have their natural temper, behavior and sometimes even attitude. But under no circumstances that you should expect proper manners and good conduct from a dog. After all it is still an animal. However, there are ways to curb their natural instincts. One of the most popular is Dog Obedience Training. In this article, we would look into three basic principles that must be observed when training your dog to be obedient, they are as follows:

First Principle, BE CONSISTENT.

The very first rule in dog obedience training, in fact in all kinds of animal training, is consistency. The command word, for example, must be uniform regardless of who is giving the command. In order to maintain consistency, you as the trainer, must formulate some personal guidelines and rules that you intend to follow beforehand. Say, training sessions will be limited to 15 minutes only. Five minutes will be used for the review of previous lesson and the other 10 is for the introduction of the new lesson.

Further, commands must be uniformed. If you started using the word "come" when requesting for the dog to approach you, you must not, at any point, use another word or make it into a phrase like "come here". Family members who are interacting with the dg under training should also follow this rule.

When it comes to the use of praise and treats, it is best to always use them right after the desired behavior. Consistency of usage will help your dog associate the nice word or the nice treat with the recent appropriate behavior. Sure, the dog does not understand what the praise means but keep in mind that any positive response from you signals that the dog is being liked. As much as possible, refrain from punishment. Dogs respond very well to positive reinforcement but not as much with the use of force and brute. Punish the dog ONLY when the situation calls for it.

Second principle, KEEP THE TRAINING SHORT AND EASY.

Dogs get easily bored especially when the task becomes repetitive. Anything longer than 20 minutes may elicit unfavorable response from the dog such as unwillingness to perform the behavior being asked. So even if you are overly excited with the new cute trick, avoid pushing your dog to the edge of his interest because once he gets bored, it would be harder for you to continue obedience training.

Further, don't exhaust your dog with overly complicated tasks. Start with much simpler task then move toward more complex ones. The key is to keep your dog interested so don't try giving him tasks that he could not easily understand or perform.

Third principle, SHOW HIM LOTS OF LOVE.

Hurting the dog will not encourage him to respond to your training. Sure, dogs don't always remember any bad thing you did to him but he might learn to associate a certain good response to a certain punishment. If you can't help it and you need to punish the dog, just use negative reinforcement or enforce a time out from all positive reinforces.

Dog obedience could be hard but with patience and resolve thrown into your set of rules and guidelines, it would prove to be rewarding and fun.