Dog training is essential for a harmonious life with the dog, for this reason carrying out the sessions properly is essential: we must teach our dog in the appropriate way, otherwise, he will not learn as he should.
Whether we are talking about basic or advanced dog training, in this AnimalWised article we will give you the keys to carry out an appropriate dog training session, taking into account the place, the signs, the time, and many other tips.
Prepare A Dog Training Session
The dog training session is the time you spend formally training your dog without interruption. Although most dog training books talk about the training session, they usually devote little space to it and don’t cover it in detail. This is why many beginning trainers get confused when deciding how they are going to work each session. Some take a lot of time for a session, others choose the wrong place, others try to train many exercises in each session, etc.
Here you will learn everything related to dog training sessions, from where is the best place to train your dog to what tone of voice you should use to give commands.
Before starting a dog training session, you have to define where you will carry it out, what criteria you will train in that session, what equipment you will need, and what reinforcers you will use. In other words, you have to have planned the training session before you start it.
In order to correctly plan a session, you have to know the difference between the session and the dog training period. You should also understand the importance of timing, rate of reinforcement, and dog training criteria.
At AnimalWised, you will learn how to plan and carry out dog training sessions. In addition, you will learn some strategies to train new behaviors and eliminate bad habits from your dog, and you will know the categories of the different basic obedience exercises.
Dog Training Place
The place of dog training is very important to achieve good dog care and appropriate results. The place may vary throughout the apprenticeship.
When we intend to teach a new training order, it will be very important to start practicing in a quiet place without stimuli. Our house, the garden, or a fenced enclosure are some examples. However, it is also important to take into account some factors, such as whether the dog has urinated, that it is physically healthy to carry out that order or that it has not eaten recently to be able to work with treats.
However, when our dog perfectly understands an order, we can start working in busier places where it can be distracted. This process should be done gradually. Being able to capture his attention from him even when there are very strong stimuli is very interesting so that the dog responds in the same way wherever he is.
Training Periods And Sessions
The ideal would be to work daily with our dog to achieve good results, however, if we do not have enough time for it, we can dedicate between 2 and 3 sessions a week. That will also depend on the results we want to obtain, on his level of well-being, or his mental capacity.
On the other hand, we must know that training sessions should not be excessively long since this can overwhelm the dog, causing discomfort. The appropriate thing is to dedicate between 5 and 10 minutes a day. The sessions should consist of a first part in which we will practice the orders already learned and later we will work on the new ones.
Commands Or Signals
Communicating correctly with our dog is very important to ensure that training sessions give good results. In our post on how to talk to my dog, you will find all the basic training commands in different languages.
You must choose a word that cannot be confused with other words commonly used with your dog. For example, if your dog is called Syncope, do not use the “Sit” command, it could get confusing. Better use ” Assis ” in French.
On the other hand, it would also be ideal to combine it with a physical signal that accompanies the sound. This process will be of great help since the dog will have an easier time understanding and it will be very useful if the dog suffers from deafness in the future.
Other Tips
In training, we must encourage the dog to develop the order or behavior that we want to teach it naturally. For this reason, we invite you to reject those excessively complex training procedures, instead look for simple and easy-to-learn techniques.
Eliminating physical punishment is another very important point to keep in mind. Dogs subjected to the use of choke collars or electric collars tend to develop serious behavioral problems along with significant physical problems. A dog that is stressed or in obvious physical discomfort is not capable of learning as another dog would. For this reason, AnimalWised always encourages the use of positive reinforcement.
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