Three Tricks to Training Your Dog Properly | Dog & Cat Health, Wellness, Products and Breed Information

Three Tricks to Training Your Dog Properly
| Print | April 14, 2009 3:05 PM

Wondering what's the best approach to training your dog? Before you get started, remember that part of training your dog is training yourself to act as your dog's leader. Keeping that in mind, here are three tricks to training your dog properly.

Praise, praise, and more praise. Your dog will respond more quickly to training if you praise him for a job well done. For instance, if you're teaching your dog to lie down, lavish praise on him as soon as he is in the down position.

Keep your dog's attention. When you are training your dog, make sure you've got his full attention. For instance, a dog who is tired or hungry won't be in the mood for learning.
Learn to look for signals that tell you it's time to take a break from training.

Be consistent. It's confusing to a dog if you're frequently changing your expectations. For instance, if you're teaching your dog not to jump on you, you must make sure that every time he does so, you reprimand him with a sharp tone and make sure he stays off.

Letting him jump on you sometimes and not other times makes the training process
unclear to your dog.