Working with your dog

1. Consistency

2. Practice

3. Praise/Rewards

4. Patience

1. Consistency

It is important to be consistent with your dog. What that means to you is that each exercise gets its own command, and you use only that command for it. Also, dogs cannot be allowed to do something sometimes-such as jumping on people, or eating food given to them from the table, or just not listening because you can’t or don’t want to walk over and make them do what you told them to. What this means to the dog is I have to do what my leader tells me. I do this because he or she is the boss, and doesn’t confuse me by changing the rules from day to day.

2. Practice

It is very important to practice every day with your dog, even if it is only for a few minutes. It is better to practice at a couple different times during the day, for 5 or 10 minutes rather than try to work with your dog for a long time just once. This is how to keep your dog from getting bored while you practice, and also it will give him or her something fun to do with you more than just once. Dogs that get to practice every day learn much faster, behave much better, and are more eager to have fun with you.

3. Praise/Rewards

This is very very important!!! This is the ONLY way your dog will know when they have done what you asked. And this is what makes your dog WANT to work for you. Dogs will look to their pack leader or “boss” (you) to see how they are supposed to behave. When you tell them to do something, and they do it, they should get a reward-if they don’t than they will do something different to try and make you happy. That means they will not learn the command correctly. So we have to praise our dogs, and give them a reward like a treat or playing with a toy so they will learn what each command means.

Praise also makes training FUN for your dog, and that is what working with your dog should be!

4. Patience

Sometimes we forget that we are working with an animal that is wired to live in the wild. Although our dogs are domesticated, what that means is their personalities have developed to the point of working with humans. It does NOT mean their natural instincts have adapted to take into account the things we as humans do or have. So when a dog displays a behavior that is inappropriate, keep in mind that the behavior is only inappropriate in our way of living. To a dog it is a perfectly normal behavior, done to gain necessities. If we lose our patience for a behavior that is completely normal (to a dog) we are not being fair with them. It is our job to teach them which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. So if a dog is making a mistake-i.e. exhibiting negative behaviors, it is actually our fault for not correctly guiding them. So when about to lose your patience remember that instead of becoming emotional, you have an opportunity to guide your dog along the correct path.