Dog Training The Right Type Of Communication Needed For Dog Training Success

Dog Training: The Right Type Of Communication Needed For Dog Training Success

The most crucial factor that can spell the difference between success and failure in training your dog is attitude – both yours and your dog’s. While your family dog may have some pretty serious difficulties, your dog’s right attitude toward training will help overcome even his most intolerable behavior. However, control of your dog’s attitude rests entirely with you!

You need to mold your dog into the family member you want him to be – where obedience and instant response will allow a relationship for you and your pet that is free from stress and frustration.

This article will deal only with training dogs between six months of age and older. There is a difference in training techniques when teaching a dog below the age of six months, and that age group will require methods specifically intended for puppies.

Teaching a six-month-old dog with kindergarten methods would be an insult to his intelligence, much like a college student would be offended if his instructor talked to him using child-like teaching techniques. Similarly, a six-year-old child would achieve nothing sitting in a classroom listening to a professor explaining the theory of relativity.

Setting Positive Attitudes While Training Your Dog

If your dog’s training periods each day consist of nothing but commands, I can assure you that a negative attitude will develop from your pet. His daily routine is now being changed to include training sessions. It is up to you, his owner, to make these training periods something that your dog will enthusiastically look forward to.

You can achieve this simply by communicating verbally with the dog during training periods. Here lies another key that will spell the difference between mediocre and excellent performance from your dog. By communicating verbally doesn’t mean the usual “Heel” and “Sit” commands. Literally talk to your dog. Say something like “Good Boy….. You’re doing a great job… Come on boy, you can do it…etc.”

Although your dog has no idea what you are saying, two things are actually taking place while you’re talking to him. First, your enthusiastic and warm tone of voice reflects your positive attitude and motivates your dog into doing a great job in order to please you.

Second, this motivation then triggers a positive attitude in your dog. Commands, on the other hand, should be given in a completely different tone of voice. They should, in fact, sound like commands, and not requests. They are then followed by enthusiastic and loving praise as soon as the dog follows the command or when shown what his correct response should have been.

Keep in mind that the most important key to the success of your dog’s training is communication. Talk to him, reflect your positive attitude in the tone of your voice and your dog will reflect his positive attitude in the excited way he welcomes each day’s training session.

BONUS : Dog Tricks - Find The Object, A Cool And Helpful Trick To Teach Your Dog

Training your dog to learn new tricks stimulates his mind, increases its ability to analyze information, all the while giving you more knowledge of how your dog's brain works. In addition, teaching him how to do tricks is a fun way to spend quality time with your dog, which then creates a closer bond between you and your pet.

Did you know that your dog is capable of learning hundreds of words as long as you apply patience and consistent training? For example, in the following trick called “find the object”, your dog will be learning how to identify a toy or a particular item by its name from a group of items. It's a very entertaining game that will widen his vocabulary and activate his thinking process.

Teaching Your Dog To “Find The Object”

To start, line up several objects on the floor or a low table and ask your dog to find a specific one. Start with an item that he's already familiar with, such as his food dish or his favorite toy, whatever that may be. Place the object in an obvious area right next to two other unfamiliar, non-fascinating objects, such as a book or a small piece of wood.

Then, point to all the items on the floor or the table and command your dog to “find the dish”. As soon as he picks up the right object, praise him by petting his head and perhaps giving him a treat. If he knows how to fetch, use the command and have him bring the dish and lay it down next to you.

Do not put the treat on the dish that he brought you because that will encourage him to only pick the dish from the group of objects that you laid out.

Next, place another item on the pile, one whose name is also familiar to your dog (such as a ball). Tell him to find that item and then go back and forth between the second object (the ball) and the dish.

Don't scold him if he picks the wrong item, and don't acknowledge it, either. Just keep saying the command “find the object”. Once he has master the game, do a more advanced variation of the game, where objects are placed in different locations and then telling him to find it.