Basics of Dog Training

by | Jul 26, 2018 | General training, Sport Training

In dog training, there are some basic elements that are helpful whether your training for a sport or just your house pet some manners. Over the years I have developed some basics that are helpful for all types of training. These recommendations are not in any order of importance, in my opinion, they are all important.

  1. Dogs have an innate sense of fairness. What this means is if you punish your dog for an infraction and you overdo it, you will “Break” your bond and trust with the dog. For instance, potty training. Your dog makes a mess in the house. You grab the dog and discipline him. More than likely he gave you signs that he needed to go out, but you missed them. You are not being fair to the dog because you missed his message to you saying he needs to go out to do his business. He is now going to have the potential to develop trust issues. You will find as you go through the articles that I use very little “compulsion” (discipline) while training. I’ve found that with positive reinforcement I get better and more long-lasting results.
  2. Watch your dog. Wheather training, playing or just hanging around the house, pay attention. Your dog will give you many signs and signals throughout the day telling you his needs and thoughts. I don’t mean that every second you have to be looking at her. Use all your senses to pay attention. Look and Listen, you will find that your dog has a rhythm, a time they need to potty, a time they like to play, and time they like to sleep. By paying attention and getting to know their rhythms you will find your training much easier. You will be able to time your training with their needs at that time. Let us go back to potty training. If you are trying to potty train when they don’t need to go you will not be successful. If you learn potty time is, let’s say 3 pm, and you take them out at 2:45, you can reward her for her pottying when she does go around 3. You will be able to coax her to potty in a certain place if that is a need you have, and so you are fulfilling two needs at once, potty, and pottying a certain place. All this by paying attention to your dog, and learning her needs.
  3. Keep your training sessions short. With a puppy, I train no more and 1-2 minutes at a time. With a young dog and even an older dog, when you are training them they take in a lot of information. By keeping the session short then letting the dog rest, it allows the brain to organize what he has learned. The next time you bring the dog out he will usually do even better because his brain has had a chance to organize the information and edit out the mistakes he made. With older dogs that have been in your training program, I still recommend keeping the session short. More short sessions with long periods of rest will give better results. If I am re-training an older dog, I treat him like a puppy. 1-2 minutes of training and then stop.
  4. Keep your training session focused. This ties in with my next recommendation. Go out with a single item you are trying to teach, keep the objective simple and on point. Remember what we perceive as simple may not be. Healing for instance. There are many parts to healing. By breaking healing down into its component parts you can get the dog to learn the behavior quickly and accurately.
  5. Break any lesson or action you are teaching down into very small pieces. By taking a lesson in small steps you can minimize mistakes and actually progress faster. With small steps, you will be able to notice what works and what does not.  What I tend to do is think about the final behavior I want. I then think about what elements are needed to attain that behavior. The smaller the behavior the quicker and easier it will be to train.
  6. Keep training fun. If your dog thinks your training session is actually playing they will learn new behavior and want to keep learning. With your training being fun you continue to build your bond with the dog and teach what you want her to do. Treats and toys are great training tools.
  7. Channel your inner “10-year-old girl”. What I mean by that is use a happy high pitched voice, especially if you have a deep voice. I have a deep voice, if I talk in a normal tone, without meaning to I can sound upset, damaging my training. By “Channeling my Inner-10-year-old-girl”, I can keep the dog knowing she’s doing well.
  8. Be generous with rewards. Treats should be high value, same as whatever toy you use. Treats need to be a higher value to the dog than his regular food. The toy needs to be something he goes nuts over. The toy or food treat may change! We had a German Shepherd that it seemed like every week he went nuts for a different toy. We ended up with a box of toys for him, and he would pick a toy to work for before each session.
  9. End on a win! This is probably the hardest rule I have. We tent to get “one more itis” meaning, “Woo, he did it right, let’s do it again to make sure he knows what to do”. This is very important for young dogs, or dogs you are trying to retrain. Once they do the behavior correct, reward and stop on a happy note. Release and let them rest. If you have a high drive dog they may still want to play/train. This is where you as the handler step in and put them away. With them taking a rest they will organize what they learned as they rest and come out next time even better.