Dog Training | Popular Dog Training Activities
There are a lot of things that need to take place when you get a new dog for you and your family. One of the important things that many families do when they get there new pet home is perform some popular dog training activities. Here are some of the popular dog training activities that one might consider performing.
Potty Training
Dog training is very important because it is needed to help dogs learn to be obedience, and to also learn to be well mannered when it comes to going to the bathroom. One of the first things that many people attempt to train theirs pet’s to do is go outside to do their thing. This is crucial if you plan on letting your dog live inside all of the time because you don’t want to have to constantly clean up your pet’s messes.
Obedience and Command Training
Other training activities that many new owners try to perform when they get a new dog are activities that will help their dog learn to be more obedient. Simple commands are taught to dogs to help them learn to perform certain activities or avoid certain activities. The “Sit”, “Stay”, and “Come” commands are all very popular dog commands that many try to teach to their pets. Some of the other commands that owners try to teach their dogs are “heel” and “fetch”. These commands are especially important for hunters because a lot of time they want their dogs to retrieve game or remain by their side so as not to scare any game away.
Sport Training
Many dog owners try to train their dogs so that they can perform in certain sporting events so they make train their dogs to perform in areas such as long jumping, agility contests, and more. These types of programs require an extensive amount of work and sometimes are limited to certain dog breeds.
Dog Training | Dog Training – Make Your Dog Listen To You
How many times have you seen dog owners shouting at their dog while the dog blatantly ignores them? Often I presume!
However, if you consider what normally happens in situations like this it is quite easy to understand why. An owner starts shouting at their dog to come to them. The dog ignores them and the owner starts shouting louder and louder and more angrily (often not the same command). The dog continues to ignore them. Then the dog owner walks after the dog at which point the dog starts sulking towards the owner in full appreciation that its owner is annoyed. Upon reaching each other the dog is treated roughly (e.g. a rough pull of the collar or even a smack).
You can see two problems here. One, the dog starts associating whatever come command you are using with a form of punishment. Hardly surprising the dog does not want to come to you. Secondly, the owner has often used several commands, which mean absolutely nothing to a dog. In case you forget a dog can’t speak your language!
Long term the relationship between dog and owner is one of fear rather than respect.
Generally a dog will disobey for two reasons (I use the word disobey lightly for the two reasons below):
1. Your dog doesn’t understand the commands.
2. Your dog is simply ignoring you.
When training your dog you need to establish commands that your dog understands. In essence, this is teaching your dog to understand a bit of your language. These should be short, ideally one or two word commands. They should be different enough from each other that it is clear what each command is. Commands that sound the same will only make learning them harder for your dog. Once you select different commands, keep the same commands forever. Remember, your dog lives in a world where people are constantly talking in a full breadth of language that they will only ever realistically pick up 20 words of.
In teaching your dog the commands, you should also adopt hand signals specific to that command. As dogs can be trained very quickly by associating a command with an action, dogs often learn what the hand signal means before they really associate the voice command with it. As with the voice command, be consistent with the hand command and make it clear. Bad example, but you don’t want to associate the sit command with folding your arms – how often do you fold your arms and how many times would you do it solely to get your dog to sit?
The presentation of your commands is also crucially important. Your commands need to be short, sharp, clear and obvious that you mean what you say. A weak or playful voice command will not work and your dog will firstly think they have an option and secondly think you are not the alpha dog.
In the case of a dog simply ignoring you, the dog understands the command but just chooses to ignore you. It
