How do I train my dog to be obedient?
Learning to obey the dog is quite an extensive topic. Most dog owners come with a question: how do I train my dog to be obedient? It is worth noting that the very word “obedience” has a negative connotation for some people because there is a growing tendency to treat dogs as companions in life and equal family members, and the dog’s obedience is associated with its submission. And while the word itself can actually have such an overtone, I personally treat various exercises in this area as learning to live together, establishing relationships with a dog and acquiring various skills that will give the dog as much freedom as possible while maintaining safety (for himself and others). Therefore, I think this basic teaching should be implemented in the lives of every person or family in which a dog appears.
In this article, Niketrainers.com.co will tell you:
How to Teach a Dog to Obey?
We have quite a lot of solutions and possibilities here today. The subject of “life with the dog” is becoming more and more popular, and you can now find a lot of material on this topic on the Internet. We can even try to teach our dog useful skills with the help of various tutorials, YouTube videos, webinars, or blogs. There are also more and more dog schools and trainers on the market who can help us teach our dog basic skills. Before we discuss the above forms of learning, however, let us focus on the methods themselves. It is worth exploring this topic in advance because different schools work with the use of different methods, sometimes quite significantly different from each other. Thus, the main training methods are aversive, positive reinforcement, and mixed methods.
Aversive methods
Very generally speaking, aversive methods (also known as “traditional” methods) are based on the fact that the dog performs a given activity or reacts to a given command because it wants to avoid an unpleasant stimulus. For example, while learning to sit, the dog is forced to put its butt on the ground by pressing its hand on its backside. This is unpleasant for the dog, and therefore, making the dog sit down is something that will make the pressure go away. Another example would be teaching a dog to walk by the leg by jerking the leash short and quick. In order to avoid an unpleasant stimulus, the dog will walk close to us. Unfortunately, these methods make the whole learning process unpleasant for the dog, and their relationship is not based on trust but rather on fear and avoiding the unpleasantness that comes from it.
METHODS WITH THE USE OF POSITIVE REINFORCEMENTS
These methods are based on rewarding behaviors that are desired by the caregiver and ignoring those that are not wanted. The guardian’s task here is to show the dog what behavior he or she wants (by, for example, guiding him with a treat to a given position), and then rewarding the dog for its performance. The dog can very quickly associate what he did that led him to a reward and therefore the probability of this behavior in the future increases. And while learning to sit down, with these methods we will teach the dog this behavior in a completely different way than by using aversion. One of the ways is to lead the dog to the sitting position (by showing the taste in front of the nose and moving it up between the dog’s ears) and reward when the pupa touches the ground. Such methods are much more durable,
MIXED METHODS
As the name suggests, it is training a dog by using both rewards and punishments, i.e. aversion. So it is a combination of the two methods described above. Although there is a lot of rewarding with flavors, it should be remembered that there are also penalties that can make the whole training for the dog unpleasant.
Of course, we recommend and work with methods based on positive reinforcement. We believe that thanks to them, the dog learns through pleasant training and play, thanks to which the bond and relationship with the handler deepen in a fun way.
GROUP, INDIVIDUAL OR ONLINE TRAINING FOR DOGS?
When thinking about training a dog, we must consider whether we would like to attend group classes or learn in the form of individual meetings. With such a decision, a lot depends on our dog and our financial possibilities. Group training can be a nice solution, for example, for dogs that already know something, but the problem for them is focusing on working with other dogs and distractions. Puppies can also learn to work in the company of other people and animals. Group training is usually a cheaper solution, but it should be remembered that the attention of the trainer is then divided among the participants of the course. Individual training, on the other hand, is fun for those who would like to work on specific skills and have the coach’s attention only for themselves. An individual approach often helps to solve some problems in training a little faster, but there is no rule for that either. The most important factor should always be the comfort of our dog and whether the presence of other dogs will not be too much of a problem for him.
One more form of activity that we can take advantage of is online meetings. Depending on the school or the trainer, such classes can also be group or individual. We receive instructions from the trainer on how to perform the exercises and send our training in the form of recorded videos. It is a nice alternative when, for example, we do not have the opportunity to travel to school and we want to teach the dog basic skills at home.
SUMMARY
Teaching a dog to obey means not only learning how to teach a dog to lie on its back or walk on its feet. There are a lot of useful skills that will allow us to, for example, stop the dog from running into the streets, calmly pass people or dogs in the park, or stop the dog from eating rubbish on a walk. Remember that each training is time spent together with your dog, and it would be great if both the dog and the handler could enjoy them. Dogs can be very happy when they do something, and even more so when they see that we are happy too. Therefore, let’s make sure that each training is pleasant and stress-free, and that the relationship with our dog gets stronger every day.
