TRAINING SECRETS
Maybe you’ve wondered if professional dog trainers have some secret method of training dogs. Probably you’ve seen dogs that have been professionally trained and wondered why your little Fido can’t seem to ever truly master such behaviors as sit, stay and come with dependability.
There is also the probability, that Fido not only doesn’t reliably obey commands, but also that Fido displays unwanted behaviors like jumping up on people, excessive barking and maybe even occasional shows of aggression. So what does the professional dog trainer know that you don’t?
Well, the first “secret” that a good dog trainer knows is that dogs are easy to train but people are extremely difficult to change. During the course of a training session, the great majority of the time is spent on training the owners and not the dog. As an example, a dog loves consistency and straightforwardness. Humans operate in gray areas where words become murky depending upon the context. Humans are also “bottom line” oriented. They feel they are successful as long as they get the desired outcome. In dog training, a simple command like “come” can show the different styles of perception between man and canine. A human might say, “come” or “come here” or c’mon” all to mean the same thing. Or, a human, in attempting to achieve their goal of getting the dog to come to them might say, “come Fido”, followed by “c’mon boy”. followed by “come, come, come, hurry up now!”. The dog may be curious eventually and come in your direction, but what Fido has learned is that his “leader” is very strange and confused. In Fido’s mind, he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to approach you when he hears “come” or if he should wait until you say “come, come, come, hurry up now!”. His mind works in associations not human logic and inference. So from what the human has said, what is the correct association? He doesn’t know.
A professional will always use the same word and never repeat his command. If the command is not obeyed, it will be immediately enforced; simple, straightforward and easy for Fido to understand and learn.
The second “secret” of the professional is his patience and seeming eagerness to see a dog fail at learning a new behavior after numerous attempts. In reality, the dog is not failing to learn. In reality, the dog is teaching itself. Every good trainer has learned that you want the dog to teach himself rather than you enticing or coercing a dog to learn. When you teach a dog to “heel”, you do not hold the leash so tightly that the dog cannot stray from your side. You allow the dog to move ahead of you, lag behind or stop to sniff. However, when the dog moves outside of the desired heel position, you jerk the leash to correct him. When he is in the correct position, you praise your dog. The dog quickly determines that the most comfortable position for a walk with master is right by his side in the heel position. This is where the dog will feel most natural because he associates any other position with an unpleasant sensation in his neck. He also learns to associate being in the heel position with praise from his master. With these associations in place, the dog now prefers to heel and the behavior will become so natural to the dog that in time a leash is not even required. Of course, this takes patience. In fact, many trainers will use treats to rush along the process by enticing the dog to perform.
However, the third “secret” of the professional dog trainer is to not entice behaviors with treats or to force the dog with rough handling. Treat training will make the trainer appear exceptionally skilled but unfortunately does little in the grand scheme of things to give it’s owner a dependably trained dog. You will be told by many “trick trainers” that you simply will wean your dog off of treats one day. However, why develop a pattern that will simply have to be unlearned in the future? The other side of the coin, is the trainer who uses excessive correction. A professional dog trainer accounts for the different temperaments of different dogs and only corrects with the appropriate amount of force. Some few dogs will need stern correction. Other dogs will respond to a firm “No”.
The professional dog trainer knows that the “secret” to obedience training is mutual respect, not treats or fear. Your dog was born with the evolutionary design to follow the commands of it’s pack leader, which should be you. Your dog was not born to sit, stay and come because a human provides him food, shelter and love. Therefore, if the human learns how to convey leadership to their dog, the dog’s genetic wiring compels him to want to learn and please you. You in turn, give respect to your dog, by never giving a command that would be confusing, cause him pain, or put him in danger. Your relationship becomes one of teamwork and mutual respect. Unless this bond of mutual respect is formed through informed interaction, you will never have a dependably trained dog.
These are some of the “secrets” we employ at Perfect Manners Dog Training and teach to our clients. These are the secrets that give our clients loving companions with perfect manners.
