BASIC OBEDIENCE
Easy Dog Obedience Training- A Good Foundation!
Whether you train your dog yourself, find a professional dog trainer or enroll in a dog training school, basic obedience training is essential. Socializing and teaching your dog the basic commands can not be over-stressed.
The following is a list of areas to cover in dog obedience training:
- Socializing with other dogs and people: This is easily accomplished when out walking your dog around the neighbourhood, dog parks or dog training school.
- Leash walking: Start this training as soon as you get your new dog.
- Crate training: This is important for building up a tolerance to stay in a kennel environment for several hours. Caution: do NOT lock your dog up in the crate for hours. That would be abusive.
- The sit command: Mostly the first command owners teach their new dog.
- The down/stand command: Setting boundaries for the dog.
- The stay command in various positions and time frames. Start with only a few seconds and build it up. In dog competitions it is expected in the higher levels that a dog should be able to do a 10 minute out of sight stay. But again, don’t rush it.
A well trained dog is a joy to be around with and strengthens the human-animal bond. Just imagine for a moment: you have a dog that comes when called, does not jump on you visitors, waits in a sit or down position by the door of the super market while you do your shopping and is friendly with other dogs and humans. What a joy? It is all possible and not entirely difficult with the proper training methods. Different methods work better with different dogs or breeds of dogs. The best is however, to keep it positive and give lots of praise. Keep the Dog Training Secrets in mind at all times.
The ATTENTION Exercise
For real easy dog obedience training, the first thing you should start with is the attention exercise. Your dog will not learn a thing if his attention is not with you. Using the clicker would make it easier, but you simply say his name with command “Fido, look!”. When Fido looks at you, give praise and reward him with a treat. (Or click and treat, when using the clicker). Do it over and over – varying the time span of focus, at first only one or two seconds and much later up to five or 10 minutes. Do not try to progress TOO fast.
The basic commands are covered in detail in the various articles on the Article page.