The One Mistake Most Owners Make With Dog Training

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The One Mistake Most Owners Make With Dog Training

Posted on May 19, 2008 - Filed Under Pets

As any pet owner will tell you, dog training can be difficult at times. It’s hard to deal with an animal that doesn’t speak English and can’t understand all of your directions and commands, and that seemingly has little respect for you and your home. Many owners resort to harsh methods of teaching or feel themselves tempted to give up entirely, ready to throw in the towel with dog training. However, many of these owners are making a mistake that is actually very common when it comes to this process, and realizing what that mistake is and avoiding it can yield much better results.

And that mistake is failing to understand how a dog thinks and why it behaves the way it does. When you’re involved with dog training it’s important to understand why your dog is doing what it’s doing and what will really motivate it to change its behavior in the first place.

Many owners assume that dogs are like little children that have a basic grasp on the language and that understand direction and commands. In reality, dogs can only associate a few words and phrases with what’s expected of them - this means that instead of telling a dog, “Go get my slippers and bring them back,” your dog training will be much more successful if you simply use the word “slippers.” This is a simple word that they’ll will recognize and associate with the act of getting those slippers. They really don’t understand the phrases “go get” and “bring them back.” But if you understand how dogs simply relate better to small and simple words and phrases, your dog training will be much more successful.

In addition, dogs actually respond much better to positive reinforcement for good deeds than punishment for misdeeds. While it’s true that during dog training a dog may need some form of punishment, the entire process is likely to be much more successful if they are more rewarded for doing the right thing. For example, if they’re barking when you don’t want them to, you can of course put them in the garage or other room as punishment but usually it’s better to use a command that means to stop barking, such as “hush!”, and put your hand around their mouth as you do. When they stop barking you then give them positive reinforcement such as some petting. This part of dog training is typically much more successful because dogs crave that attention from their owners and are more likely to do what they can to get that rather than simply trying to avoid being punished.

Yes, dog training can be difficult. It’s a lot like raising children in some ways - it requires some patience and doesn’t always happen as quickly as we’d like. But if an owner really takes the time to try to understand how they’re pet thinks and what “makes them tick,” then the process of dog training will be much simpler and much more successful.

If you want to transform your dog into an obedient and composed “poised pooch” that will follow your every command and behave under ANY circumstances, visit the link below to learn how.

House Training Your Dog