Dog training is an integral part of owning a new dog, whether it’s a sprightly puppy or a mature rescue dog. Its benefits transcend beyond just shaping your dog’s behavior; it can contribute positively to their safety, mental health, and your overall relationship with them.
When you bring a new dog home, you’re introducing them to a world full of unfamiliar sights, smells, and routines. Training helps your dog navigate this new environment. It offers a way to communicate what you expect from your dog, which behaviors are acceptable, and which aren’t.
According to professionals like those at Canine By Design, training your dog serves as an excellent preventative measure against potential behavioral issues. Aggression, excessive barking, or destructiveness can often be mitigated with early and effective training. It’s easier to instill good habits from the start than to rectify established problematic behaviors.
Moreover, dog training significantly contributes to your pet’s safety. Teaching basic commands like “stay”, “come”, “leave it” can protect your dog from harm. For instance, a well-timed “stay” can prevent your dog from darting into traffic, and “leave it” can stop them from eating something dangerous.
Some excerpts:
Every interaction you have with the animal is a training session. So it’s important to be aware of what you may be doing to reward inappropriate behaviors throughout the day especially when you are not having planned training sessions.
Animals care about your body language and actions more than your words. Consequently, you should focus on the messages your body is giving, pay attention to your pet’s response, and cut down on the words you use.
Positive reinforcement is not just about giving treats for good behavior, it’s about moving and performing the exercises in a manner and speed that make it fun. It’s also about using everything your pet likes or wants, to your advantage—toys, petting, attention, access to go outside or come in, fetch….. and more.
The goal of training is to make behaving well fun for the pet. Dogs are more likely to behave well when good behavior is fun.
Make it FUN!