Motivating Your Dog
Keeping the attention of your dog while training is not always easy. Dogs can be easily distracted, and it is important to not allow the dog training sessions to be sabotaged by boredom. Making dog training fun for the dog and the human alike is essential to creating a happy, well adjusted and well trained dog.
You should provide random positive stimuli throughout the day in order to keep the attention of the dog. Doing things the dog like, like walking in the park, riding in the car, and playing with other dogs, are great ways to keep the dog’s attention, but you must reward him for small successes.
For example, in order to reward the dog for coming to you when you call him, ask the dog to come to you, without giving any clues about a walk, a car ride, or other treats.
After the dog has come to you and obediently sat down, attach the lead and begin the reward. This can be either the afore-mentioned walk in the park, ride in the car, or anything else the dog enjoys doing.
Giving some sort of reward, whether a treat, a special outing, or just a tickle behind the ears, every time the dog does something you want him to, is a great way to keep your dog’s motivation while you are dog training.
If your dog knows something great is going to occur every time he follows your command, he will be more motivated to please you every time.
Distraction training.
When training a dog, it is important to not let distractions ruin the training. The dog must be taught to ignore distractions, such as other people, other dogs, other animals and loud noises, and focus on what is being taught These types of distractions can also be used as rewards when training the dog to come when called.
For example, if your dog enjoys playing with other dogs, whether in a local park or with the neighbour’s dogs, let him play freely with those other dogs. Then go into the park or yard and call your dog.
When he comes to you, give him lots of praise, treats and other rewards, then immediately let the dog to return to playing with his pals. Do this several times and praise the dog each time he comes to you.
The dog will quickly learn that coming to you means good things (treats and praise) and not bad ones (being taken away from the park).
This so-called distraction training is one of the hardest things for your dog to learn, because dogs are social animals by nature, and leaving the pack is one of the hardest things you can ask your dog to do. Most dogs will be understandably unwilling to leave their doggy companions, but it is important to persist in dog training.
Training the dog to come to you may require some creativity on your part at first. For instance, waving a favourite toy, or a lure, is a great way to get your dog’s attention and put the focus back on you. If your dog has been clicker trained, a quick click can be a good motivator too when you are training your dog.
Once the dog begins to get used to coming when called, you can start to reduce and eliminate the visual cues and focus on getting the dog to obey your voice alone. It is important that the dog obeys voice commands alone, since you will not always have the availability of a toy or other lure.
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