It Is Important To Continue Especially When You See A Small Bit Of Progress
If your child had just started school and had learned a few things you wouldn’t stop after only a few weeks. That is the time to really take advantage of the momentum and progress. We want to approach training your dog the same way. A lot of clients tend to stop once their do has learned not to bowl them over on first greeting. And for many people that is fine. But you can do much more.
I like to think of training as a series of steps, where we can get to higher levels of training as we progress. The point we try to achieve is to have a fun and working relationship with your dog. We also want to give owners enough practice that the concepts stick and the reactions are fluid. Finally we want the people (and the dog) to have the tools and enough proficiency with them that they can solve an unexpected problem or change that might occur.
The first thing we really teach is that training can and should be fun for both the trainer and the dog. Even a seemingly silly exercise like tossing treats for a dog to catch or find can initiate a great introduction to training. It seems too easy and without purpose. Yet the complaint we receive most often is that the dog doesn’t listen or doesn’t pay attention. The best result of this exercise is that the dog learns that watching you and paying attention is actually beneficial to the dog. By getting the dog engaged, we make the dog an active participant in its own training which is the topic for our next tip.
