What Are The Most Common Mistakes People Make In Training? Dont Set Your Dog Up To Fail !
1 Not Rewarding What You Want Enough.- Dogs ( in fact, everything) do what works for them .What is rewarded will be repeated . What is repeated will become habit . You can and should reward in some way EVERYTHING you value . Calm and quiet? Reward .Settled or on their bed ? Reward . Focused on you ? Reward . Coming to you ? Reward . Seeing or hearing a trigger ? Reward . Feet on the floor ? Reward. Making the right choice? Reward. All of these things are the foundations of the complex skills that undo the behaviour you dont like. Build solid foundations .
2 Not Preventing What You Don't Want While You Teach What You Do. - If you don't make it easy for your dog to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing, you will only get the wrong thing. Your dog will make the most rewarding choice and until it learns your choice will be the most rewarding, it will choose the natural behaviour - jumping on you or taking the food off the counter or chasing the cat . Until your dog has learned what you want it it simply can't give it to you. Having a leash on when you open the door to visitors enables you to remove the dog if it's too excited . Without one you can't .
3 Allowing Unwanted Behaviour To Be Practised.- Remember what is practised will become habitual. Don't allow your dog to practise behaviour you don't want . Remove the dog from an exciting environment or prevent the behaviour eg don't leave temptations within reach and use a leash until it' s not needed .
4 Rewarding What You Don't Want. -See the behaviour from your dog's point of view . You will then see how you are inadvertantly rewarding what you don't want. Pushing your dog down or telling it off when it jumps on you is rewarding the jumping because your dog jumped on you seeking interaction with you . And that's what it got . Yelling at your dog when it barks is rewarding the barking because your dog was barking to get support for a percieved threat ( eg passer by ) or because you have inadvertantly taught it that you will pay attention to barking .
5 Skipping Steps In The Training Process. - If you make it too hard too fast , your dog will fail. Would you give your child one piano lesson then book a concert hall ? NO! If you make it too hard before your dog has solid reliable understanding of what you want, your dog will never be able to progress.
6 Punishing Your Dog . - Punishment does not teach your dog what to do .Your dog will NOT understand what it is being punished for.Punishment simply makes you an unprediactable scary monster . Studies have repeatedly found that dogs who are hit will often learn to bite and will get in first . Studies have found dogs who are yelled at will have stess hormones in their blood for 48 hrs . Or they will simply ignore you as much as possible because being with you is simply not something they value .
7 Not Telling Your Dog What You DO Want. - " No" is not a behaviour . Do you know how to "No" ? Would you go into a restaurant and expect the waiter to guess what you want ? Or would you tell the waiter what you want -and pay for it ?Don't tell your dog what not to do. .Tell it what TO DO . Instead of shouting "No " , say "come !"or "leave it !"Or "sit !" Tell it what you WANT.
8 Not Listening To Your Trainer- first of all , NOT ALL TRAINERS ARE CREATED EQUAL. Ensure your trainer is qualifed , accredited , and a positive reinforcement trainer - not punitive, not "balanced ". Punitive or balanced ( rewards and punishment ) trainers will damage your dog psychologically , physically , and will damage your dog's relationship with you .Choose your trainer carefully- but having done so , do what they tell you. A qualifed trainer will have scientifically proven reasons for what they tell you to do and be happy to answer any questions about it . Look into the method and be sure you understand how it works and the pos and cons of the chosen method- but having done this , follow their advice . It can't work if you don't do it !
Then when they have shown you what to do and explained the reason and answered your questions and demonstrated the technique - it's up to you to practice the technique. Dogs learn by repetition and consistent. predictable outcomes .
9 Stopping Too Soon.-Practice practice practice !Dogs learn by repetition and consistent predictable consequences . Often people start , the dog makes some progress, then the person slips back to what they were doing, and because the wanted behaviour isn't YET a habit ,unsurprisingly, so does the dog . If you stop before the new behavior is reliable , it never will be .Happily there are easy quick ways to train your dog - I can help you with this . It requires comittment -but it needn't be difficult .
