If you love your dog – start training now
Have you ever dreamed that your dog would come when called? That he would quickly respond to your commands and wag his tail happily while doing it?
This beautiful picture does not have to stay a dream – you can absolutely have this. All you need to do is start training your dog.
Training your dog is a really cool thing to do – not only for you but especially for your dog:
- Dog training provides mental stimulation. Every time you train you are presenting
your dog with a puzzle: he has to figure out what behaviour earns him his cookie. You can make this a fun game for the dog that is both mentally and physically tiring. - Figuring out which behaviours work to earn rewards, give the dog a sense of control. Imagine that your dog wants to go into the yard. So he sits politely by the door to be let out. How nice! Surely, this kind of behaviour works much better than jumping and barking at the door and getting yelled at a couple of times before you eventually give in and let him out anyway.
- The better your dog behaves the more time you will spend together and the more places you can visit together.
Dog training is not as difficult as you might think. Any dog can learn to sit and lie down on cue, walk nicely on a leash and – most importantly – come when called.
How animals – including dogs – learn is one of the most studied fields in psychology and how to apply this science has been very well known (and equally well ignored) for many decades. Luckily, you don’t have to study psychology. All you need to know is the first principle of dog training:
Dogs do what works.
Your job is simply to find out what your dog loves, then you can get him to do what works for you.
What is YOUR dog’s favourite tidbit? Leave a comment and let us know!
