Breaking the Dog Training Myth of “# of Simple Steps”

Posted by Deakster on February 11, 2009

I am about to break a myth that has been around the dog training circuit for some time.

The myth is that you will “have a perfectly training pet in “X” number of Steps”.

The truth of the matter is that training your pet does require time, effort and multiple, repetitive training sessions.

Take a minute to think about the steps. Each step is one basic training lesson. Even washing your hair in the morning has several “steps”. Wet hair, lather, rinse and repeat.

I know that if training my dogs was as simply as saying “Sit, Stay, Good” and I was done, then I would have done so a long time ago. Even as a trainer I sometimes would rather be doing something else instead. Heck I like to watch TV, sit and read a book, or even post to my sites.

However, training a dog properly does take time. So do not get discouraged when you read headlines that claim your dog will be trained in a few steps. Just realize that each one of those steps does include sub-steps that must be performed.

If you think of “Sit” as one step, “Stay” and another step, “down” as a third, then yes you too will have a dog that is well trained once they have completed your version of the “x(1,2,5,12, whatever) step program”.