Pet Training Series Part 1 – What you Need To Know Before You Train Your Pets: Introduction

Posted by Deakster on December 11, 2008

Introduction

There are many reasons to train your pets. Most of all it will make your pets life better. A properly trained pet is less likely to disobey your commands, will be less likely to get into trouble, and will also be less likely to be punished. This provides a better quality of life for both you and your pets.

Unfortunately, many people do not train their pets properly. How come? Well, mostly because they simply do not know enough about how to properly train themselves. You thought I was going to say their pets, didn’t you. Well, the truth is, before you can even think to train your pets, you have to take steps to insure that you have a proper foundation to work with.

Over the next week or two we will be discussing “10 Dog Training Tips You Must Know Before You Train Your Pet”. So lets start with tip number 1.

Dog Training Tip #1: Train Yourself Before You Train Your Dog

An unfortunate reality is that most people are not ready to train their dog. It is quite easy to underestimate the amount of work that goes into training a pet. It takes time, energy, and sometimes money. You have to account for these issues long before you are ready to start puppy training.

CONSISTENCY IS PARAMOUNT TO PET TRAINING

Training your puppy will require that you are consistent with your vocabulary of commands. If you use “sit” always use sit. Do not change it from “sit” to “sit down” or “I said Sit”. As this will only serve to confuse the dog. Training will be hard enough without this extra level of confusion.

As consistency is a key factor to training your puppy properly, you must also be consistent with your vocal tones. Present your voice as firm, but not yelling or angry. Remember dogs themselves generally communicate through various intonations of barking, growling, and whimpering. because of this your dog will respond to vocal intonations much better then you think.

The third part of consistency is your body language. You should use body language as part of your dog training techniques. For instance, pointing to the floor when commanding “down”. Much in the same ways as your voice tones do, your body language speaks volumes to animals. Simply watch any two dogs together and you will see exactly how major a method of communication body language is for your dog.

One thing that I recommend you do is to test your own consistency. What you can do is record yourself with a small tape or digital recorder and see how many times you alter your voice or commands. You will find that you are not nearly as consistent as you think you are being. Most times a person will tell their pet to “sit”, and then within seconds say “sit down”, and then a few seconds later it becomes “SIT DOWN” as they start to get frustrated. This is not consistent.

Training yourself to be as consistent as possible will likely be one of the hardest part of your own training. Your puppy training depends on this consistency so much so, that in fact if you are not consistent you will almost guarantee that you will become frustrated and actually do more harm then good to your puppy.

So start right now on becoming more consistent in your training mannerisms. If your training your puppy, stop for a few days until you can become more aware of your own inconsistencies. You will notice that as you become more consistent, so does your pet.

Next Post Preview: Training Others Before You Can Train Your Puppy

See you all tomorrow.