Training Your Dog – Its Easy And Fun But Do Reward Him

For many people, the very phrase conjures up images of military types bellowing commands to a group of confused dogs and owners on a cold, wet field! However, this is not what we are talking about. Training with your dog should be a two-way process, with communication between you both. Training will enable you to enjoy your dog more fully. We do not want a dog who, robot-like, obeys every command, we want a dog we can enjoy taking places with us. A dog who comes when he is called can be let off his lead in safe places to run. A dog who walks nicely on a lead can enjoy day trips with the family. A dog who settles down in the house can meet visitors and enjoy their company. A well-trained dog can enjoy sharing life with the family, without needing to be excluded. Most dogs love attention from their owner and so you can use this to your advantage.

Rewards

Rewards are essential, but so is timing. A dog views the consequences of his action as the time during or immediately after the action. Imagine: you ask your dog to sit, he sits and you rummage in your pocket for a treat. However, by the time you give the treat to your dog, he is already standing again. What has your dog learned? To sit? Or to stand? He will associate the reward with the last thing he did. If instead of standing, he jumped up at you and you are now teaching him to jump up. Therefore, the reward must be during or immediately after the action. With a young or untrained dog, this timing is vitally important, as a delay of more than half a second can mean that he is learning something else.

Punishment

As human beings, we are sometimes extremely quick to resort to punishment, despite the overwhelming evidence that it can actually slow down learning. It can also damage the relationship between dog and owner, which in turn inhibits further learning. A dog will do what is most rewarding; therefore, how can punishment teach a dog to do things for us? Even if punishment can stop one behaviour (and there is evidence to show that this is not necessarily the case), how does that tell the dog what we are wanting? If he gets something wrong, maybe this is because he is confused or doesn’t understand, rather than that he is just ‘being naughty’. If this is the case, how will punishment help? Rewards will teach our dog almost all that he needs to know. If he is making he is mistake, we need to look at other ways of explaining what we want, rather than becoming cross. Food is often useful to lure your dog into positions when training, but remember to use other rewards, especially as he progresses.

Andy has been writing articles for several years. Check out his latest website on coat rack stands which gives people help and advice to find the best deals for coat rack trees.

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