Getting Results from the Start

To be a successful trainer teach your dog in small, easy steps.  An old saying says “Inch by inch life is a cinch; yard by yard life is hard”.  This is easily applied to training which really is easy “inch by inch”.  The place most people make mistakes in training is trying for too much at once which both confuses the dog and frustrates the handler.

Set Up for Success

If you are having behavior problems with your dog, you’re probably wondering how dog training can ever be described as easy!  When broken down into small parts however, even difficult behaviors are simplified.  Don’t believe it?  Let’s use the recall (come when called) as an example.  Many people complain that they can’t get their dog to come when called ever.  Next time you are preparing your dog’s food have someone hold him in the next room.  Put his dish on the floor and call him.  You will probably find that in this situation you have no problem getting your dog to come when called.  This is how all behaviors should be taught.  Teach your dog behaviors, as easy as you can make them, which sets your dog up to succeed and have a high rate of reward.  Before you can expect your dog to come when called in a distracting situation you need to first build a positive association with the word and the desired behavior.  After lots of easy set ups you will slowly make things more and more difficult.  Because you are building a good foundation and you aren’t ever asking for too much, soon you’ll find training is no longer hard for your or the dog.

Foundation Behaviors

Foundation behaviors are the first things you want to teach.  These behaviors are the base for everything else you will be teaching your dog.  It is very important not to skip any of these and to be sure your dog can perform them solidly before moving on.

The foundation behaviors are coming when called, down, sit, target/touch, off and attention.  These commands will make your life with your dog easier, will help you prevent and solve behavior problems and will make everything else easier to teach.

Breaking It Down

The best way to teach any behavior is to break it into small parts.  If you are working on attention, you will start with rewarding a glance in your direction.  Then you will ask for your dog to give you eye contact.  Once you have eye contact you will gradually ask for slightly more time (one second, two seconds, three seconds) until you have a dog who will give you solid attention for a prolonged period of time.

Before you start teaching your dog any behavior, first try to think of how the behavior can be broken down into small parts.  Have a plan for teaching the behavior by rewarding each of these small steps.

Clickers for Quicker Training

When rewarding small steps of a behavior, a clicker is by far the fastest way to train.  A clicker is a small noisemaker which is paired with a reward.  To pair it with a reward click then treat rapidly about twenty five times in a row.

Once paired with a treat the clicker is used as a “behavior marker” which tells your dog exactly why he is being rewarded.  This makes communication with your dog faster since he no longer has to guess what it was that got him the tasty treat.  The clicker is especially suited to catching small parts of a behavior since it is quick and precise.

Just Rewards

Often people are worried about using rewards in training.  They have concern that their dog will not listen if they don’t have food or that their dog won’t really be listening to them.  However, rewards used properly are a very effective training tool.  Show dogs, agility dogs, police dogs and bomb detection dogs are all trained using rewards for proper behavior.

Behaviors which are rewarded will be repeated, so by rewarding a behavior you want you are ensuring your dog will offer the behavior more often.  Rewards make it worthwhile for your dog to listen to you. Training with rewards doesn’t mean you always have to use them.  In fact, after the teaching phase it is best and makes the behavior strongest to only offer rewards randomly rather then every time the dog performs the behavior.

You will want to be sure the rewards you are offering are really rewarding for your individual dog.  Some dogs love hot dogs, while others find them gross.  Some dogs will do anything for a ball and others think toys are boring.   Experiment with different treats and toys to see which your dog likes best.  Switching between their favorites will keep them always interested.

Higher Education

Once your dog has mastered the basics you may want to continue training by:

• Teaching your dog more advanced behaviors like heel, long stays and hand signals
• Enrolling in agility or flyball
• Training your dog to be a Therapy Dog
• Teaching your dog fun movie tricks
• Unleashing your dog’s natural instinct through herding, hunting or lure coursing