Dog Training - Obedience

By Allen McDaniel

Obedience training will not solve all behavior problems, but is is a good start to having a well-disciplined pet. Even if a dog is not well-trained at doing tricks, or using the bathroom in the right spot, that can be all right. A disobedient dog, however, can cause serious problems wherever it's taken.

Obedience training, like most forms of dog training, is a gradual and ongoing process. You may notice significant improvement in the first few weeks of training, but even after years there will be room for improvement. It is imperative that obedience training be one of the first steps in your dog training system. Once a dog is obedient, it will allow you to teach the dog other things faster and easier.

More so than any other form of training, praise and rewards are paramount in obedience training. They should also be corrected more strictly. A slight error in potty training can be an inconvenience, but a slight error in obedience can cause slowdown in all forms of a dogs behavior, including aggression. Don't expect a dog to understand commands the first few days. Be consistent with your commands, both in tone and volume. Don't raise your volume or change your tone out of frustration, as this will only confuse the dog. If there will be multiple family members interacting with the dog, try to have everyone use the same tone and volume.

Although you should be firm and strict with your dog, don't be harmful or punishing. It has been proven that positive reinforcement is a much more successful training method than negative reinforcement. Use fun, short training sessions. Give your dog rewards when they do good. Correct them when they do wrong. Remember that a dog can't do something "bad", they can only do "wrong". Saying a dog does something "bad" implies that the dog has a conscience. Dogs have been programmed through ages of evolution to be very self-centered. They do what they are programmed to do because that programming has helped them survive for hundreds of thousands of years.

Try to find out what motivates your dog. Find out which commands your dog responds to best and focus on those commands, and on that tone and volume. Try to use your dogs natural responses to your advantage.

Save yourself a lot of time and hassle by focusing on obedience training first. This will make the rest of your training go much smoother, faster, and you and your dog will enjoy each other much more.

You can find more dog training resources at http://www.dogtrainerpro.info Allen McDaniel has spent time learning from leading dog behaviorists and is happy to be presenting his knowledge to the online community.