The Key to Training Your Dog

I say this to everyone who asks the best way to train your dog: Training your dog is easy when you use positive training methods. You can’t just punish, punish, punish or else your dog will always expect punishment, and what reason would he have for being good?

Training your dog with positive reinforcement:

When your dog is being tranquil and quiet, maybe lying at your feet while you read the newspaper, give him a treat. When your dog is playing with another dog nicely and not jumping up onto someone? Give him a treat. Walking by your side instead of dragging you? Treat.

Don’t just reward him after “Sit” and “Lay down”. Not only will he expect treats only then, thereby giving him more opportunity to do a little digging in the flowerbed, but he will never get treats for just being a “good dog” in day-to-day activities.

Your dog will come to realize that maybe digging in the trash isn’t worthwhile, especially as he gets a treat for sitting calmly by your side. This is what you want.

This training method is very simple, easy, and is probably the quickest method to seeing results for a calmer, easier to be around pet.

The basics for positive reinforcement:

• When your dog performs an action and is rewarded, whether with pats on the head or pieces of cheese, he will perform that action again.

Give the command “Sit” and your dog sits, you then praise him for this with a treat. Over time with practice, when your dog hears the Sit command, he will sit so you will praise and reward him again.

Train yourself this way, and expect your dog to follow.

You can even use this method for when your dog is behaving inappropriately. Take for example my dog, Diesel. He had the infamous habit of jumping on anyone who walked through the front door. As Diesel was a 90-lbs. Labrador Retriever with paws the size of trashcan lids, this wasn’t exactly a welcome thing.

How to train your dog with positive reinforcement when acting badly:

Give a command that causes your dog to stop what he is doing (the ‘bad dog’ thing), such as the Sit or Lay Down command. You can also ignore your dog by simply turning your back on him, but as you can’t always ignore a 90-lbs. dog attached to your hip, this wasn’t always an option for me.

Since Diesel couldn’t Sit and jump on me at the same time, he was forced to the ground. I used the always handy “Who’s a good dog? You are!” method to reward him whenever I didn’t have a treat available.

If your dog is in the act of doing something you don’t want him to do, train yourself to give him a command that prevents him from continuing instead of yelling “No!” or “Stop!” While loud noises may also be helpful, this is the most useful tool.

When your dog stops the bad behavior, give him a treat.

In a situation where your dog is over-excited and not listening to any commands at all? Take him out of that situation, pronto, and put him either in another room or his crate. Removing your dog from the situation instead of giving him a command allows your dog to settle down in his crate and keeps him and others safe and, ultimately, happier.

In total, positive reinforcement in dog training is a very simple, easy way to get your dog to be a calm, happier dog. There are no difficult instructions; just love your dog when he is being a good dog too, instead of always reacting to his bad side.

If you take this easy, relaxed approach to training your dog, expect the fastest of results.