Dog Training Tips Part III: Let Your Dog Win!

In my previous two blogs in this series, I talked about having a training goal in place and rewarding effort. If you apply these tips correctly, eventually your dog will be getting it right most of the time. If your dog is constantly failing, then you have not clearly communicated your goal to your dog or you have expected too much. A dog that is contantly failing (and also gets punished for it), becomes helpess. Helpless dogs lose all interest in training because it’s not fun or rewarding.

In order to avoid your dog becoming helpess, you must set it up for regular wins. Success equals rewards, which equals fun, which means the dog is more receptive to learning new behavior. As you can see, the formula is simple:

frequent wins + rewards = learning

Conversely:

frequent losses + punishments = helplessness (disinterest)

If the dog does not seem to understand what is required, then it’s time to rethink your strategy. You can do this by putting these techniques into place so your dog is set up for success more often:

• Limit training sessions to 15 minutes. Sessions should be short. Puppies can be trained in little as 5 minutes per session.

• Make training really fun – make it a game and use it as an opportunity to use play as a reward.

• Train your dog on a regular basis. If you leave too long a time between session, your dog may have forgotten what it had already learnt last time.

These simple techniques will make a huge difference to your dog; you’ll start to see a dog that is more alert and eager to please.

What have you done to make it easy for your dog to learn?

Dog Training Tips Part II: Reward Improvement

This is the second of my ten part blog series on basic dog training principles. This series will focus on the foundations of dog training; knowing these principles and strategies will make training your dog easier, simpler and faster. These principles are used by professional dog trainers to get the best from any dog they train. You, too, can easily apply these tips so dog training is no longer frustrating. With my tips, you and your dog can actually enjoy training together!

In part I of this series, I talked about having an ultimate goal for any command. The operative word here is ‘ultimate’; this means you can’t expect immediate perfection from your dog. Any dog, even those trained by professionals, need time and repeated reinforcement before they learn any command. Any training goal – no matter the dog or trainer – can only be achieved over a number of training sessions. There’s no set rule on how many sessions any training program will take, so be flexible when it comes to your time frame.

The goal of any individual training session is to either reinforce what was taught at the last session (what I call a ‘pace’ session) or get a little improvement from the last session (what I call a ‘lead’ session). The ratio of pace to lead sessions should be about 10:1. I’ll demonstrate this with an example, if you have managed to train your dog to remain seated for 10 seconds without wandering off, then a lead session might be to increase that length of time to 15 seconds. The next 10 ‘pace’ sessions will then focus on ensuring the dog is comfortable remaining in the sit position for 15 seconds. If the dog is successful, then you can increase the time again with another ‘lead’ session.

Remaining on this example, just say the dog only sat for 2 seconds extra when the trainer was hoping the dog would improve from 10 to 15 seconds in that ‘lead’ session. Should the trainer punish the dog? No! Always reward some improvement. In other words, reward your dog even if it makes an attempt to do what you’ve asked but doesn’t quite succeed. This will motivate your dog to try even more.

If you were to ask a dog about this, it would say: “I think I am getting the gist of what my owner wants, I have given it my best shot and I got a reward. Woo hoo! I now know I am heading in the right direction.”

Dogs that are punished for trying, become demoralized disempowered. This can lead to a refusal to participate in training. When a dog reaches this point, it’s quite hard to recover the dog’s love of pleasing the owner. Don’t let this happen to your dog.

Has your dog improved a little in training lately?

Dog Training Tips Part I: Know Your Goal

This is the first of my ten part series on basic dog training principles. This series will focus on the foundations of dog training; knowing these principles and strategies will make training your dog easier, simpler and faster. These principles are used by professional dog trainers to get the best from any dog they train. You, too, can easily apply these tips so dog training is no longer frustrating. With my tips you and your dog can actually enjoy training together.

Whenever you want your dog to learn a new trick, command or behavior, you must have the outcome in mind.

Always begin any training program with this question: What command do I want my dog to understand and perform? As an example your goal might be: I would like my dog to sit immediately when I say “sit” with me standing 1 meter (or 1 yard) away from the dog and it will stay in the sit position for 30 seconds at which time I will “release” the dog.
(I’ll talk about releases in a future blog as part of this series).

Once you have a goal, you can then chop up the outcome into smaller goals. You can then look forward to your dog achieving your goal over a number of training sessions. Each training session becomes a small step towards that goal.

After each session you can then measure your dog’s progress against your ultimate goal. Ask yourself: Is my dog getting closer to my ultimate goal? Or has my dog’s learning stalled?Occasional stalling is normal – but if your dog does not make small improvements over the course of 5-10 sessions, then you’ll have to change your technique. (I’ll go into this further later in this series).

For now, just know that having an ultimate goal in mind means you will be more confident in your training. Having a sense of purpose will also make for a more responsive and relaxed dog. After all, if you were to ask your dog about your training and you had no goal in mind, your dog would say: “it’s obvious my owner does not know what she wants, if she doesn’t know, how am I supposed to find out?!”

What training goals do you have?