Successful Obedience
Training
ta
kes consistency,
patience, practice!
A
simple fact of dog training is that nothing happens overnight. Training
a dog is a process. Whether your
training for competition obedience
or manners, the key to achieving any desired behavior from
your dog is
to be fair, consistent, patient and practice.
Learning
to communicate with your best friend with kindness and fairness is
essential in training your pet to
be a well behaved happy member of
your family. However, proper training,
repetition and consistency on
your part are the keys to SUCCESSFUL
LEARNING!
Although group training is
available to help insure your dog can listen with distraction, oftentimes
group
training might not be the most conducive
learning environment for your dog. Private training lessons are
available for
this reason.
The Greater Coastal Canine
Academy trainers and staff strive to bring our canine community what we
feel is
essential – EDUCATION! Lectures and seminars are available on various
subjects such as nutrition, health and
breeding. We are looking forward to meeting you and your dog! Believe
it or not, no dog comes into this
world knowing what we expect of them. Too often,
pet owners mistakenly believe that once they bring home
their new friend that he or she should listen to everything that is told the
first time. It does not work this way!
Consistency!
To
achieve success in training, YOU MUST BE
CONSISTENT!
For example; if you want to teach your
puppy not to jump on others, you must not allow him or her to jump on you. If
you are trying to keep your
dog off the couch, then your family members must
follow the same rules. In your dogs world, consistency is
the key to learning, and the element of your relationship that makes you a fair
teacher.
Anything different
creates confusion, and frustration in your dogs mind.
Lack of consistency is where undesired behaviors start to
develop, and problems in the training processing occur.
Practice,
Practice, Practice!!
In
order to achieve success in obedience training you must first teach your dog
what you expect and than
practice! Studies
have shown that it can take some animals repeating an exercise
up to 220 times before it
becomes an automatic behavior. Meaning two things; first,
every dog is different, so don’t expect that your
new dog is going to learn the same way your previous dog learned; second, you
need to work with your dog.
Actions that you desire must be repeated over and over again. Your communication
with your dog must be
consistent, and you need to be patient.
Less
is more!!!
Young
dogs have short attention spans. When working with your dog, keep your training
sessions
short. If
you start to see your puppy loosing focus it is because his little brain is now
taxed and it is time to stop. When
this happens you
want to have your dog do something he knows correctly, like a sit, give
lots of praise, and
than end the training session. It is important to adjust your training session
as your dog matures. Start with
three or four
5 to 8 minute sessions a day and work up from there.
What to expect from your classes
As
a student at the Greater Coastal Canine Academy you will be given all the tools
and information needed in
order to achieve your goals. Yet, be mindful that after you are given the
tools you must work with your dog
in order to achieve results.
Our
classes are geared towards your success at home.
In other words, training can only go forward if your dog
has learned the previous exercises. For example, in order to progress to
teaching the “stay command” you
must first teach “sit”. If you
do not practice you will not see results!
Be
mindful to follow the above rules to successful obedience training as you go
through your classes. Your and
your dog will achieve greater rewards if you maintain these practices.
Ellen
Carey
