9 Common Mistakes You Could Be Making While Training Your Dog

Training a dog is crucial to their safety and obedience – but are you doing it the right way? Here are 9 common mistakes you could be making.

1. Insistence

If you’ve given a dog a command and they’ve messed it up more than three times, that means you are not conveying enough information to your dog. Stop and try something else.

2. Mixing Positive and Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement doesn’t work, but mixing it with positive is even worse. This is because it will keep your dog anxious, unsure if they will be rewarded or punished, unwilling to take the risk.

3. Repeating Cues

Saying the same cue over and over again changes the cue. This means telling your dog to sit four times changes the command from “sit” to “sit sit sit sit” in the dog’s mind.

4. Excessive Treats

Treats are great rewards, but if you overdo it, your dog is going to start only working for food. Mix in praise and toys as rewards, too.

5. Bad Mood Training

In a foul mood? Train some other time. Your dog can pick up on your moods and you’re more likely to be impatient.

6. Insufficient Practice

Dogs need daily practice to remember their commands.

7. Training For Too Long

There’s only so long that a dog can be interested in the rigorous structure of training. Keep each session to ten to fifteen minutes.

8. Training In One Place

A dog who is trained in the same place all the time will only think the command applies to that specific place.

9. Overdoing The Clicker

Clicking with no reward or clicking repeatedly will confuse your dog and cause the clicker to stop being effective.

Feature Image Source: Pixabay