Dog training is essential if you want your dog to fit well into both your home life and the outside world. Dogs who are trained can more easily adapt to a variety of situations, including those with other people or animals. Whether you attend training with your dog or send your dog to training classes, there are ways to enhance these sessions even more. Keep reading to find out how to get the most benefit out of your dog training sessions:
Talk to Your Dog Trainer
Working closely with your dog trainer can help you find a way to continue their hard work even when your dog is back at home with you. Learn about different positive reinforcement training techniques that you can continue to use throughout the week. Find out when you should praise your dog and when you should give him a treat. Discussing your dog’s training with a professional trainer is the best way to enhance what they are doing without unintentionally hindering it. It will also give you a place to start when continuing to train your dog.
Be Consistent With Your Dog Training Sessions
Dogs work well with structure and consistency. If you can maintain a certain level of structure around a training session, your dog will learn the new behaviors faster. If the trainer worked on commands like “sit” and “stay” in the weekly session, try to work on them at home as well. Be sure to use the same words your dog trainer is using and ask everyone in your house to do the same. When everyone is on the same page, it sets your dog up for success.
Don’t Overdo Dog Training
While consistency and structure are helpful for your dog, too much training can be detrimental. Short training sessions spread through the day can be more effective than a grueling long one. Dogs have shorter attention spans than we do, and trying to throw too much at them in one day might have the opposite effect than you intend.
Follow Your Dog Trainer’s Guidance
Don’t try to add on too many commands until your trainer gives you the okay to do so. You don’t want to overwhelm your dog by trying to teach too many things at once. Building slowly onto the training foundation your trainer has help build to ensure that your dog learns these skills for good.
Maintain a Positive Attitude
Dogs can sense our emotions, so it is essential to stay positive when training. Getting frustrated when your dog isn’t picking something up doesn’t help anyone. Maintain a positive attitude, speak to your dog in happy tones, and add some fun into your dog training sessions. Your dog will want to earn your praise, so being positive will benefit everyone.
When you are ready to start training your dog, Union Lake Pet Services is here for you. Our professional trainers are Karen Pryor certified and use positive reinforcement training to help your dogs learn in a happy, fun environment. To learn more about our training services, call (248) 363-6262.