Obedience For Dogs

You've reached page 2 of our Dog Obedienc Training article, for page 1, visit: Dog Obedience Training.

Calming Signals

Dogs use signals to calm each other. This is something really useful to use in situations where the dog is getting stressed. Examples of these signals are yawning, turning the head to the side or completely away, walking slowly, and sitting down. An even stronger calming signal than sitting down is sitting down facing away from another dog. You can use these kind of behaviors to calm your dog.

What you don't want to do is reinforce a behavior you don't want by giving attention to the dog.

Positive Reinforcement

The basic technique of any obedience for dogs training is to positively reinforce a desired behavior with praise or treats and to ignore an undesired behavior. Reinforcement must be immediate or it will not be effective.

Clicker Training

Clicker training is one way of working with positive reinforcement. A small clicker is used to make a clicking sound whenever your dog engages in a desired behavior and this is closely followed by a treat. The clicker means that you can effectively mark a desired behavior at the moment it occurs so that the dog knows clearly which behavior is being rewarded.

How to House Train A Dog Or Puppy

See the article on House Training A Puppy. This is one of the first things you will want to get started with as soon as you get a dog or puppy home.

Dog Crate Training

This goes hand in hand with toilet training but can also be used in other aspects of training. Read the article on Easy Puppy Crate Training.

Teaching the Basic Commands

Everything that has been mentioned already will be a help in training your dog or puppy to obey the basic commands like "Sit", "Stay", "Come", "Down" and "Heel". In competitions for obedience, hand signals are not allowed but to combine hand signals with verbal commands makes understanding what you want so much easier for the dog. So, it's recommended to combine both together at least in the beginning.

You should always be consistent and use a single command combined with a single hand signal for a single desired behavior. Also keep the verbal command as short as possible.

Training Time

This varies depending upon the age of the dog. For puppies five minute sessions are sufficient but can be done four or five times per day. For older dogs fifteen minute sessions are recommended for two or three times per day.

Training Place

Choose a place where there are no distractions for your dog. You want all your dog's attention. This could be a quiet place in the house, in a yard or in a garden. Later, you will want distractions to test your dog's obedience. So you will want to move into public places like parks or in a street.

Note: This is page 2 of our Obedience For Dogs article. For page 1, check out: Dog Obedience Training.

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