Training Your Dog

Follow These Tips for Success

I started on my own training venture with my dog River about two and a half years ago, which you can read about here.

Doesn’t she look proud? Seems silly to say, but I’m certain that she was, and so was I! This adorable photo was taken of her on graduation day from her basic obedience course — partly to celebrate her and partly to celebrate myself. We started our obedience class with a few other dogs, but we ended it with just us and the trainer. That information alone should give you a clue of how rambunctious my spitfire was.

Even though she was just a puppy, she was large, and she definitely thought she was in charge. If she wanted to jump, she jumped. If she wanted to make a new friend, she was making a new friend, even if that meant trying to knock them down with kisses and dragging me along the way. And talking? Oh, if she had something to say, she was going to say it — loudly and proudly. It took an incredible amount of work to get her trained, even in basic commands, and I was more than happy with the progress we made in that class. I just wish the other pups and owners had stuck around to see it.

I used to apologize for my wild child with nearly every breath until I learned a very valuable lesson. Dogs, like people, have a multitude of different personalities. Timid, rambunctious, extroverted, introverted: dogs come in all shapes and forms.

The key to enjoying training your dog is remembering this simple fact — you can not compare your experience training your pet with the experience of others.

Your dog is not like any other dog on the planet. I mean, that’s what makes them so special, right? They are your dog, and your dog is going to learn at a different pace and in different ways than any other pet. So, you have to do yourself a favor. Focus on you and your pet’s journey only. Keep learning together while exploring your pet’s unique personality and any embarrassment, with a little work, will turn into joy.

That wasn’t an easy lesson to learn. Having a dog that was free spirited and didn’t like to listen really could be embarrassing at times. She definitely did not fit into the cookie cutter idea of what I thought the dog I was bringing home should be like. I don’t know for sure that those other pets and their owners left the training class because of River, but I wouldn’t be surprised. (I will say that their looks of horror before never coming back may have given me a clue.) She was energetic and easily distracted, so learning for her happened at a completely different pace. She cared more about socializing than rewards. Honestly, she was all over the place, and it was very hard to figure out the best way to communicate with her what I was wanting. But that’s why we signed up for a training class, and that was an important first step for us. Don’t let embarrassment discourage you from working with your pet in whatever way is needed, and don’t be afraid to reach out for help.

Part of the fun of training is figuring out how to communicate with your dog in order to get them to behave the way you expect them to, and luckily there are people out there who are interested in helping you along your training journey.

I’m one of those people, and I hope that these tips I picked up along the way will help.

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Make Training a Positive Experience

One of the first things you need to address is how you plan to go about training. There are plenty of options available to you, and that will become apparent with the large number of search results you get when you start to look into dog training. There’s an overwhelming amount of advice on the internet about which method you should use to train your dog, but not all of them are ideal (in fact, most of them aren’t). First and foremost, you need to consider your goal with training.

If you want to use training to strengthen the relationship you have with your pet and help shape your dog into an ideal companion, the positive method is for you. I highly recommend clicker training. It’s a great tool that can assist owners in improving relationships with every kind of dog by turning around problem behaviors without the use of force or fear. This gives you the chance to change the unwanted behavior, without damaging the trust that is so important to your relationship.

In fact, dogs that are taught to behave through positive training are more tolerant, self-controlled, and they behave far more predictability in various situations. So what exactly is positive reinforcement-based clicker training? It’s pretty simple. You give the dog a reward to reinforce a behavior you like. How do you do that? Well, there’s a variety of ways. Some of the top ways you can reward the behaviors you like are with treats, toys, or attention.

So, you may be wondering what all you will need to start training. Buying a clicker is one of the first investments I would recommend making. Clicker training uses the sound of the click to mark the desired behavior as it’s happening, and then you follow that signal immediately with a motivating reward like treats, toys, or attention. Figuring out which rewards your dog responds to can help make reward-based training fun and interesting for both of you. Once you learn what motivates your dog to behave, there’s no limit to how much the two of you can learn together.

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Set Your Dog up For Success

Every pup deserves the chance to be set up for success, and there are several different ways you can accomplish this.

Teaching your dog basic skills and providing them with enough mental stimulation and physical exercise are vital. Taking these steps can prevent your fur baby from developing stress-related behaviors like destructive chewing, inappropriate barking, and aggressive behaviors. You’d be amazed what a good food puzzle and a daily walk can do to improve your pup’s behavior. If you haven’t yet, start there.

Setting them up for success also means managing their environment, which is done by understanding how your dog reacts to certain situations. Just like people, dogs vary on the social spectrum. If your dog is a social butterfly, you’ll want to allow them to greet guests that come into the home, because they enjoy it just as much as we do. You can start by teaching them manners, such as not jumping up to greet guests. However, if your dog is scared or unsure of new people, don’t be afraid to take some pressure off by putting them in a separate area while guests are over. Managing your environment to reduce pressure is a great way to help keep everyone happy and safe.

After all, that’s what training is for— to create the happiest and most fulfilling relationship that’s possible for you and your companion.

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Don't Force Your Pup to Be a Socialite

Here’s something that we must learn to understand as dog owners: We put a lot of pressure on our dogs to be social. We encourage them to be friendly with every person and dog they meet, even if they are uncomfortable in those situations. Training your dog to behave well in different situations is obtainable, but it will require that you put in some effort. The more you work towards teaching your dog to live successfully in a human world, the more you will avoid bad behaviors that come from misunderstandings.

You can socialize your dog by giving them good experiences in the presence of all kinds of people, animals, and environments.

This doesn’t mean that your dog has to physically touch another dog or person. Exposing your pup to different situations where they can observe and converse at a distance is just as important as teaching them to accept physical touch. The process of training and socializing your dog is all about keeping them comfortable in social situations, while also making sure that you’re not forcing them into an uncomfortable situation.

An important thing to remember is that it is not a failure to keep your furry friend out of a situation that they find to be uncomfortable. Observing how they react to different situations will help you respect and understand your dog’s limits.

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All Work and No Play is Not the Way

Pinching pennies and becoming a doggie drill sergeant are not requirements for training your pet. The learning process does not have to be costly or intense, and the more enjoyable it is for both of you, the better the results will be.

Your dog will respond to your direction if you make it fun, so make sure to try to keep it a positive experience. A healthy balance of learning manners, encouraging sociability, and providing your dog with the right outlets will ensure success. Any dog will catch on eventually if you are patient, consistent, and encouraging. Plus, the more time and effort you put into the training process, the more you both will get out of it.

One of the most important things to remember is that if training isn’t going well at first, it doesn’t mean that you have a bad dog or that you’re a bad owner. Some days, like with everything, will be better than others. This just means that you’re both a work in progress.