Pet Training Series Part 2 – Training Others Before You Can Train Your Puppy

Posted by Deakster on December 15, 2008

The other day we talked about how important it is for you to remain consistent with your puppy training techniques. We cannot over-state the important of keeping your level of consistency, well consistent. The more repetitive you are, the quicker your pet will learn, and the more readily your pet will listen.

Today we are going to discuss one of the biggest setbacks a beginner pet trainer will encounter. Unfortunately this is a real pain to have to deal with, and can often get you in trouble. That is the problem of having “too many trainers”.

Other people mean well. They know your trying to train a pet, but they often just do not understand that they are inadvertently playing a role in that training, for better or worse.

Other People Distraction Factor

To your pet, other people nearby can and often will be quite a distraction. When puppies are young they simply want to explore the world. Having other people near by gives the puppy something else to focus their attention on. This means your puppy is no longer giving you their full attention. This will often lead to you repeating commands, getting frustrated, and your puppy not learning as effectively as it can. As your puppy gets older, and becomes more well-trained, then having distractions becomes necessary for further training, however try to avoid having others around in the beginning.

Other People Confusion Factor

This is a big issue for any dog trainer to be aware of. While we do our best to get you to become consistent, we cannot always account for other people in the house. A perfect example of this is when a pet owner uses the command word of “NO” to denote stuff the dog should not do. Only to come home to find a spouse or child using a completely different phrase such as “don’t do that”. Much like your own consistency, you need to make sure that all of those around you are also using the exact same commands. In all honesty, if you thought training the dog was hard, training other people around you is much worse. People simply don’t take it well when you tell them, “their using the wrong commands”. However, it is by far one of the largest confusion issues for your pet.

Other People Bad Habit Factor

Everyone has a bad habit or two. Some people drink alot, other bite their nails, and some people teach their bad habits to pets. Even worse then confusing your puppy during training, are those who, not meaning to, accidentally become detrimental to your pet training. I am sure these people do not do it on purpose, but it happens this way. A good example would be pet jumping. If you have ever known a pet that jumped, then you know how much of an issue this can be. They jump, knock people down, cause scratches just to name a few problems.

So how would you feel if you spent months working on keeping your pet from jumping, only to come home to a person holding carrots up high and getting your dog to jump for them. Extremely frustrated to say the least. That one act of getting a pet to jump for a treat can undo your months of training because now the dog thinks jumping can get rewarded.

Keep in mind that when you are training your new puppy, that you are training them. These other people are not, and as such should not proceed to act as if they are. Be polite in telling them that you are working very hard to prevent unwanted or unsociable behavior in your pet and ask them not to interfere with that training. Sometimes it might even help to have them offer your pet something that can be done instead.

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