5 Mistakes People Make When Training Their Dog

1️⃣ 🛑Don't train often enough🛑

🐾 Training takes time and a lot of practice for our dogs to master new skills. Training your dog on a consistent basis is crucial to their success. Oftentimes, when life gets busy, training our dogs is the first thing to fall to the wayside and then we wonder why their manners seem to be backsliding. If you enjoy golf, but you only practice once a year, it's unlikely that you'll be very good at it.

2️⃣ 🛑Inconsistency🛑

🐾 A lack of consistency can greatly impact your dog's ability to learn. For example, One day you work on 'four on the floor' during greetings, but the next day you allow your dog to jump on you to greet you. This creates confusion for the dog because expectations are unclear. Not only will your dog be unable to consistently give you the response you want, but you're likely going to get frustrated with them from time to time for engaging in the behaviour that you don't want even though you DO allow it.

3️⃣ 🛑Repeating commands🛑

🐾This is a very common issue among pet owners. The reasons our dogs don't listen can vary; distracting environment, confusion, the dog has an aversion to a particular command are just a few reasons. The problem with repeating commands is that the dog learns that they don't really have to listen until the 4th, 5th, or 6th command.

4️⃣ 🛑You haven't generalized the behaviour🛑

🐾 Have you ever noticed that your dog listens pretty well at home, but not so much in public? This is a common mistake that pet owners make. If you've only ever practiced 'sit' with your dog in your living room, odds are good that they'll only reliably sit in your living room. Dogs don't generalize the way humans do, so they need to practice their skills in a variety of environments and situations to understand that sit means sit regardless of where they are.

5️⃣ 🛑Waiting too long to start training🛑

🐾A lot of people wait to train their dog, or just don't consider it until their dog has developed a lot of bad habits. The longer you wait to start training your dog, the more time your dog has to practice bad behaviour and the more practice they get, the more these behaviours become solidified in their repertoire and the harder they will be to change.