Start With These Basic Dog Training Techniques

The easiest way to successfully train your dog is always to start with some basic dog training techniques. Still not fully understood, the relationship between man and his best friend goes back in time many years. Although many people will say that humans are smarter than dogs, after carefully watching you might wonder if your dog still might have the edge!

dogs interact with the world differently than humans do. While they understand and respond to people about the same way a two-year-old would there are major differences in how they experience reality. The sensory differences include a highly sensitive sense of smell as well as the differences in responding to the visual stimulus of reds and greens. An understanding of these differences will help reduce human frustration and misbehavior by the dog.

Dogs are naturally pack animals. They are descendants of the wolf which is a social animal and functions best with interactive play and a strict hierarchy. The idea of the ‘lone wolf’ seems out of character based on the social habits of the wolf.

Beginning training at a young age is best, even four weeks is old enough depending on the breed. Devote a half hour, or better yet an hour, each day for training during the first few months.

While housebreaking your dog is a bit more complicated (and we will discuss this in another article), there are a few basic dog training techniques that all training should follow.

When training your dog, you want to make it clear that you are the dominant one as early as possible. Dogs are pack animals by nature, and every pack has a natural pecking order. The top dog is the alpha. It is followed by the beta dog and so on. If you want sanity in your household and you want a happy dog who knows where he stands, you need to step up and be the alpha of his pack.

The ease with which this is done depends largely on the breed of your dog, as well as the individual temperament of your dog. Just like people, some dogs act more assertively than others. Tools like leashes, collars, commands, and other training material are nice to have but the thing that influences successful training is your dog’s attitude. Don’t allow him to take charge of you.

This does not mean that you need to be dominating by using your physical strength, although you may need to when it is appropriate. Most of the time a firm hand and patience to wait for the dog to comply is all that is needed.

For puppies, try placing them into a position of submission when they are still young. Roll them onto their backs, and put your hand firmly in the middle of the chest. When they lower their paws, this signals a sigh of submission. You can go further by placing your face directly in front of theirs, emulating dominant dog behavior.

In the beginning it is best to keep the dog on a short leash to help curb the dog’s inherent desire to run and scamper. Time to run freely is an important component of a dog’s health and well-being, but, at the outset, this should only be allowed prior to or after the training, instead of during the session.

Use single word commands like sit, stay, down, in a firm tone. Always keep your voice the same or each command but make sure each of the different commands sounds different to your dog. You should avoid using double-word commands like ’sit down’ or ’stay down’ as these words are similar and can confuse your dog.

A constant tone, look and hand sign should be included with every verbal command. Later we can separate them, but initially it is important to offer simplest and most stable type of communication.

Remember that dogs have a word understanding roughly equal to a toddler so you need to keep your meanings simplistic. For example, don’t use the verbal command “Down” to mean lay down as well as to indicate not to jump. This will just confuse your dog - stick to 1 meaning per word.

Using these basic dog training techniques, along with a firm hand, some patience and a lot of love will help you have a happy and obedient pet for life!