Picture taken from www.recipeapart.com
It is no secret that training your dog is a lot of work a lot of hard work.
But that shouldn’t discourage you. Actually, it should encourage you!
Because by training your dog, you will be setting the stage for a mutually beneficial relationship.
There are five traits that you as a trainer can exhibit to ensure smooth training.
It’s not always easy to demonstrate these traits, but the more you do the more enjoyable and productive your training will be.
Five Traits for Dog Training:
- CONFIDENCE.Indeed, training your dog can be intimidating, especially if you have never trained a dog before. But by using the right sources as a reference to help you learn how to train, you can gain the knowledge and the confidence you need for successful training.If you are not confident when you are training your dog, he will be able to pick up on that sense of uncertainty. And if you don’t have confidence in yourself, why should your dog have confidence in you?
When you are confident with your training, your dog will respect you as a leader and will learn his lessons faster.
- ATTITUDE.The success of your dog training will also be determined by your attitude. You may be frustrated with your dog because of his destructive or disobedient behaviour, but if you taint the training with your negative attitude, the training will be unsuccessful.If you go into the training with a positive and energetic attitude, your dog will pick up on this and reciprocate back to you! Just remember, attitude is the one thing you can control in an uncontrollable situation.
So if you had a bad day at work and came home to a mess, don’t release your anger during your dog’s training. Instead, adopt a positive attitude and you and your dog will enjoy the training experience.
- COMMITMENT.Dog training is a big time commitment and an emotional commitment. If you are really busy at work and putting in extended hours, you may be too tired at the end of the day to commit to training right now. It is better to wait until you have the time and energy to devote to training.Once you decide you are ready to start training your dog, make a firm commitment with yourself that you will stick to it. Your training will only be effective if you set aside the time to do it.
- EFFORT.Once you have made the time commitment to train your dog, you need to give it your best effort. Training is not something that you can do half-heartedly; it needs to be done whole-heartedly.Basically, remember this rule of thumb: The less effort you put into training your dog, the less progress you will see. The more effort you put into training your dog, the more responsive he will be to it and the more progress you will see.
- PATIENCE.Patience. Patience. Patience. You will need a lot of it as you train your dog! There will be times when your dog would rather play than train. Or, he may be distracted by other activities going on inside the house.But, practice patience and you can actually find a sense of humour in his charming little idiosyncrasies!
It is worth noting that these five traits are not only important for you to exhibit, but they are also important for anyone in your household who is contributing to the training of your dog.
Essentially, your family has welcomed your dog into the home, so it is up to everyone to be in agreement about the training goals, the training practices, and the training outcomes.
When you do this, your family will be uniting with each other and increasing the quality of life for everyone including your dog!