Dog Training

Basics of Dog Training

Before you begin training your dog, you should take some time to familiarize yourself with the pack nature of dogs. In your home, you have to be the pack leader or your dog will never behave correctly. When you train your dog, you are first and foremost training him or her to obey your commands as they would obey the pack leader in the wild. You do this through a series of immediate rewards and punishments.

Basic Commands

• Come. This command is very important for your dog. This will help them get out of trouble by forcing them to come to you when called. To teach this command, you will need to have the dog on a leash, say "come," and pull them towards you. Then you need to immediately reward them for this behavior.
• Sit. You will want to have the leash on the dog. Then say "sit," push down on the dog's rear, and reward your dog. You will no longer need to push down on your dog once they get the hang of it.
• Down. Once you get your dog to comply with the sit command, then you can move easily on to the down command. Treat training works great for this. Get your dog to sit. Then put a treat in front of their nose and lead them gradually into a down position by moving the treat closer to the ground while saying down. Once they are down, give them the treat and praise them.
• Stay. This is combined with either of the two positions above. You can do this by saying "stay" and gradually increasing the time that you have them in their position before giving them their treat/reward.
• Heel. Using the collar and leash, have your dog next to you (typically on the left), say "heel," and being walking. Jerk the leash if your dog tries to stray from you, stay behind, or move ahead and stop moving. This will help teach them that they will not get to go on a walk with you unless they stay right next to your leg. You can use treats, praise, and other rewards as your dog progresses through this command.

If you can have your dog master these commands, then you are a long way towards a well-behaved dog. However, this is just the beginning. While some dog breeds are easier than others to train, all are capable of these commands along with more advanced training techniques.

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