There is a whole plethora of undesirable behaviours that your dog can display so there are many reasons that justify training your dog. Depending upon how you want your dog to behave, some breeds of dog will be easier to train than others, for example some breeds are naturally more intelligent.
The best time to start training your dog is when the dog is 8 to 12 weeks old and the most fundamental initial training involves housebreaking and the dog learning its name. Housebreaking relates to where the dog sleeps and where it excretes. A dog box or crate should be placed at an appropriate spot and should be set up as the dog’s bedroom. A suitable outside spot should constitute the dog’s bathroom. The puppy should be led out by you through the same door to the very same spot each and every time it needs to excrete, which will be about once every 3 hours. If regular routines are reinforced in this way the dog will come to associate particular behaviours with particular places. This is the initial behaviour management involved in training your dog.
Dogs will respond to marked differences in voice tone rather than the actual content of what you say so tone of voice is very important when training your dog, use a low, gruff voice for commands. When giving praise mention the dogs name a lot and use a high pitched voice for praise.
When training your dog to follow basic commands the training should be reward driven, whether through games or food and indeed games on their own can be important for establishing control relations. An example using food is to face the dog and, holding out a small piece of food, raise it up over the back of the dogs head so that the dog is forced to adopt a sitting posture whilst it follows the food intently with its gaze. You then say “SIT” using the appropriate tone of voice, this behaviour should then be regularly reinforced and will eventually happen without the inducement of food. The appropriate behaviour should always be followed by effusive praise.
This short article has just presented an overview of the basics involved in training your dog. You can build upon this information using more detailed resources and ultimately get your dog to do whatever you want, within reason.
