OBEDIENCE TIPS FOR YOUR DOG

Teaching your dog basic obedience skills can be a huge challenge, but well worth the effort in the long run. Start by doing your homework, as a student can only be as good as the teacher.
The first thing to do regarding obedience is to get your dog to pay attention to the commands you are giving him/her. You should start by calling his/her name and then use a keyword, such as, ‘watch’ or ‘look’ afterwards, so that he/she will associate the words to a command. After you have his/her attention, you can then start the lesson.

Dogs can only pay attention for a short length of time, as they have short attention spans and get distracted very easily. Try to keep his/her attention by doing attention exercises. One tip would be to hold a toy or dog treat near your mouth and then give him/her the keyword command. Every time he takes the time to watch, praise him. The more you repeat this, the more he should be able to pay attention to you. Try to get him to watch for at least a minute and then let him/her know that he/she is doing a good job by rewarding him/her.

Because dogs have such short attention spans and get distracted easily, choose a place that is quiet and distraction and make sure there are no other pets or little children around that might create too much noise. You should make sure that the obedience training lessons are no more than 30 minutes at the most. If you try to keep him/her training for a longer length of time you will find that he/she will get distracted and restless.

Another thing to remember is to never cause your dog pain, as this will make him want to shy away from you or perhaps become aggressive. If he/she gets distracted, change your tone of voice, but this doesn’t mean you should raise it.

There is nothing more important than consistency, as animals are like children. If you are not consistent, they will become confused as to what they can and cannot do.

The first command should be teaching your dog to sit. You should use the word ‘sit’ while you are teaching him this skill, so that he can relate the word with the action. You can start by gently pushing his backside down while saying the word ‘sit’. He/she should eventually understand the concept.

The second command should be ‘down’. This is a very important command, as if you have a hyper dog that gets excited easily, you don’t want him/her jumping up on people when they come to visit you. When they jump up, tell them ‘down’. Don’t ever pet them or act like you’re excited to see them while they have their front paws up on you. You must continue to tell them ‘down’ and even place their legs down on the floor if you have to.

The command ‘stay’ is very important and is a good one to know especially if you have a very active dog. You can teach him/her to ‘stay’, for example, by putting a treat or something desirable, on the ground and as he/she starts to come towards it, tell him/her ‘stay’. You could also put your hand up (like saying stop) while saying the word ‘stay’. When he/she begins to become obedient with this command, you can then move further away from him/her. He/she will probably then become more daring and will take a step toward you to see how much he/she can get away with. When he/she does this, continue to put your hand out and keep saying ‘stay’. He/she has to learn that even though you are moving away, you can still see what he/she is doing and expect he/she to continue to obey.

These are just a few basic obedience lessons to help you make your dog much easier to live with and to obey the commands of their masters. UpScalePetAccessories offers additional tips about dog training information along with products like dog hats and more hints that might be of some assistance. Just remember that ‘consistency’ is the most important tip.