Dog or Puppy Obedience Training Tips

When you teach your dog or puppy basic obedience, the training will prevent destructive behavior. Training your dog will define you as a leader and will teach your dog to know their place. Obedience training will also keep the dog’s boredom at bay and give your dog a mental workout. Training a puppy early on will help the puppy integrate into a family more easily.

Use Basic Commands

Sit, stay, down, come, leave and heel are the basic commands that dogs learn from the start. When giving these commands for your dog to learn, begin in a familiar place that does not have any distractions. This will give your dog a chance to master a command one at a time before moving on to the next one. Keep the commands consistent and use the same word over and over again.

Rewarding Your Dog

When your dog is successful at obeying the command given, then you should reward him with either a treat, a toy or physical and verbal praise. You should reward your dog immediately after the command is obeyed so that he will see the connection of the behavior and the reward. This will encourage your dog to repeat the behavior each time you ask him to do something.

Introduce the Three Ds

Distance, duration and distractions are the three Ds that are introduced after your dog had mastered the basic commands.

Distance is the first thing you can start off with. Using the command “down” when your dog is at your feet and when he obeys successfully, then give him a treat. You will begin to take steps back and say the command again, increasing the distance as you go. When he obeys, you will then continue to give him treats.

Duration is when the dog holds a position for a period of time. This will give your dog an effective workout. When you give the “stay” command, the dog should obey the command and you should count to three. If he obeys the command in the allotted time, then he should be rewarded. Continue to do the duration training and increase the time gradually.

Distraction is training your dog to listen to you while he may have different stimuli going on around him. A good way to do this training is to bounce a ball and see if he will listen to you instead of being distracted by the ball. When he is listening to you and not the ball, then reward him either with a treat or let him play with the ball for a while. You can also use more than one thing that can be distracting or use the same ball and go to a different location that may be noisy to continue the training.