Is it hard to train dogs?

Just as potty training for dogs, dog training starts from day one. Training is inherent to all of us, but by becoming aware of it we can start training our dog immediately as soon as he gets to our house.

To correctly train your dog or puppy, you should be aware of the basic training dos and don'ts.

As we’ve seen, we’ll start training our puppy as soon as he arrives home, contrary to popular belief, dogs of any age can be easily trained, but a puppy can facilitate things because he has no bad habits (yet).

To make sure your dog sees you as the trainer and not some leash you use on him, start your training sessions without any tools, like leashes or special collars.

Rules to train your dog:

• Simple training is always effective

• Basic training comes with the knowledge of prevention, redirection, rewarding, correction and maintenance. Do there techniques consistently, and both you and your dog will learn it very well.

• Your dog always acts for some reason, you must understand why

• You'll learn here some very effective methods you can apply to your dog's training. By following them step-by-step you can understand their meaning and can later adapt them to serve your own personalized training.

• Every command you give to your dog is meant to be done.

• Be consistent to your dog and make him comply every time you give him an order. You cannot let your dog do what he wants. If he must do something, you must make him do it even if he doesn't want to (use common sense here please). Don't ever give a command to your dog if he is out of range for a correction, or if you don't think you can get to him on time to make him obey. For example, if you’re taking a shower and you call your dog, if he does not come, you’d better be prepared to go get him immediately, even if that means to wet your living room.

• Consistency is the key to good training

• This is very important. A behavior is either acceptable, or not. There’s no mid-term. Don't let your dog bark at the neighbors dog just because he is annoying. You won't like that when you're out for a walk with your dog and he starts barking at everything he sees. He won't see the difference between situations, and will become nervous and unstable because he won't know what to do.

• Be careful with the number of people that interact with your dog on a daily basis, the fewer the people the better consistency you can have. If you have a big family, you must educate the members of your family, on what is allowed the dog to do, and what is not allowed. All rules should be followed by your family in the same way. Training will take more time if children interact with the dog in a daily basis. You should be aware of that because it's harder to get consistency.

• Consistency

• I can’t stress this enough, consistency is really the top rule to have in mind when you’re training a dog. And this can be applied to a daily basis training, or even to more specific "trick training".

• This is easier to introduce to your dog when he’s still a puppy and in an off-leash situation, when you let him run around the house freely (almost). Don't worry about your dog becoming too much of a robot due to so much consistency. It won't happen, and your dog will get better and better at everyday's training.

• More consistency

• Yes, you must be consistent.