Dog Training 101: How to Completely Train Your Dog

Are you a pet parent who has just brought a pet home? Usually when we bring puppies home, one of our major responsibilities as pet parents is to train our pets. Before your pet starts going out and socialising, it is very important for you to ensure that it learns the right way of interacting with people and other creatures around. As you might have heard and read, Dog Training can seem a little tough and overwhelming in the beginning, especially if you are a new pet parent.

It requires a lot of effort, time and persistence. However, it is not impossible for you to do this job easily. If you take baby steps, you will be able to achieve your goal in no time. Not just that, you will also enjoy this time with your pet and will cherish it forever. 

1. Housebreaking Training or Crate Training 

Most of us plan to keep our pets indoors (inside our houses). As a result, housebreaking training or potty training becomes very important. This is probably one of the first things you should work on. Crate training is one aspect which has always proved to be very helpful. This basically is an umbrella term which includes house training along with many other things. 

Crate training is basically teaching your dog how to accept a place. Not just accept that place, but start enjoying the place. This plays an important role in the process of housebreaking. If we talk about housebreaking specifically, it is not a very complicated process, but that doesn’t mean it is easy to house train your pet. You will have to be very consistent and diligent with the approach. 

2. Leash Training 

Due to obvious reasons, when in public, the dog has to learn to walk with a leash on. If you might have studied, many countries and cities have leash laws. These are not in the favour of the people around, but also for the pets, to protect them from fast moving traffic on roads. Initially you should introduce your dog to the leash and then eventually teach him how to walk with a leash. If you keep the leash loose, it teaches your pet to not pull when on leash in public. This might seem a little difficult to you at first, but believe us, the dog becomes trained and everything becomes smooth in no time! So enjoy the process. 

3. Socialising your dogs and puppies

All of us know, at some point, our pets have to interact with other people- in parks, on the road or even when guests come over to our places. It is important to teach our dogs how to accept people when they meet them. This can be done by eventually exposing the dog to various people, places and surroundings. If your dog is socialised nicely, it is less likely to develop behavioral issues and people are less likely to be ‘scared’ by it. Infact, socialising can also help your dog overcome its fears and phobias that it might have developed due to various reasons. 

To conclude, socialising your dog is a great help that you would do to it. It would help him fit better and be a better behaved dog. 

4. Clicker Training

A dog training clicker is basically a small device which the trainers press when a dog shows desired behaviour. It makes a distinct sound when pressed and is much more effective than saying ‘good dog’ when they portray a desired behaviour. This is a very common and effective form of positive reinforcement. As dog parents, this might work very well for you as happens in most cases. However, it might not be very effective for a few dogs. These clickers can be easily spotted at various pet stores or even at vet’s clinics usually. These are relatively inexpensive when compared to other dog equipment. 

5. Basic commands and fun tricks

As a dog parent, we know you expect your dog to obey basic commands like come, bark, drop it, run, sit, stand etc. It is important for your dog to understand these commands in order to behave decently in a house. This will provide structure to your pet in addition to improving its behavior. Teaching your dogs basic tricks and commands might seem tiresome at first. However, once the dog starts recognizing them, things become very smooth for you. Who doesn’t want their dog to bark when they tell it to! No gain without a little pain! 

3. Proofing and Troubleshooting

This is usually the last step of training your dog. This is the stage where you start testing what you have taught your dog. You do this in various situations and in front of various people in order to ensure that the dog performs well at all places and times. The levels of distractions and too many people around usually tend to deviate the dog from what it has been taught. In the absence of the proofing stage, your dog might behave well in your living room when you are teaching it, but may not give the same result in public. This way you will be able to understand what triggers your dog to not behave nicely, how do they react etc. After knowing this, you try to solve these problems and work on their behaviors. Behavior management is an important part of any dog training process. 

We hope you are all set to train your little buddy! You should try to train your dog yourself because it is not just mere training, but also your chance to bond with your new friend. However, in some cases, it might become very difficult for you to train your dog due to the dog’s behavior or probably your schedule. In that case, you can hire a dog trainer for help. Dog training is really a memorable phase of your puppy with you, you should always try to be present when your dog is getting trained! 

Good Luck! Happy Pet Parenting!