Training Your Dog: A Comprehensive Guide
Training your dog can be a challenging task that requires a lot of work and patience. Most of us simply desire a well-behaved, friendly dog that provides us with companionship.
Dog Training Schools
Many people opt to take their dogs to dog training schools. This is a great option as your dog will be trained by professionals while also socializing with other humans and dogs. However, there are two main disadvantages to this:
- Dog training classes can be expensive and may conflict with your schedule. You need to compromise to take your dog to class and pick him or her up.
- Training your dog is a great opportunity to build a good rapport with your dog. By having someone else do it for you, you are losing that opportunity.
There are training schools where the owner is the one training their dog with the assistance of an expert. This is a much better option but will require more of your time.
Training Your Own Dog
The other, most common option, is to train your own dog. Even if your dog is going to a training school, it is beneficial to have additional training time with your puppy. As stated before, it is not easy, but it can be very rewarding.
Traditionally, people used to train their dogs by “being the alpha” and inflicting pain, fear or intimidation. This methodology is not supported by science and can be dangerous.
Positive-Reinforcement Training
The best approach is positive-reinforcement training, which rewards good behaviors, and its effectiveness has been scientifically proven. In this method, you would reward your dog when they perform the desired action. Although this reward is most of the time associated with treats, it can also be playtime, affection, or any other activity that your dog enjoys.
A typical question about this methodology is, “How do I teach them to stop doing something bad if we are doing positive-reinforcement training?” The answer is by disciplining your dog without inflicting pain, fear or intimidation.
Disciplining Your Dog
For example, you can have a room or corner in your house where you put your dog for 5-10 minutes every time he or she does something bad, or if your dog is off the leash and doesn’t follow your commands, you put the leash on.
Each dog is different, like us, they have their own personality, and you need to consider their breed, their age and their past because it will affect their training process. There are a lot of training accessories that may be helpful depending on your situation.
Remember, be patient and if you need it, our Mavyn pet experts are available on demand to help you with the process and any questions you may have. Request an expert on our Mavyn website, we don’t want you to find a mess when you get back home.