The eBark: Rockingham Dog Club Issue 3 April 2016 | Page 16

Are You Making Training Mistakes?
By Steve Duno |

You don’t train your dog
often enough. Most of us do

Your training sessions
run too long or too
short. Teaching new behav-

teach basic behaviours and routines to our new dogs. But once
the relationship stabilizes, we
often allow our dogs to go on
“auto-pilot.” Consequently, response times for important behaviours can worsen; often a
dog won’t even respond.

iours to a dog is a process of
evolution, not revolution. The
key is in knowing that it’s usually going to take numerous
sessions to perfect a new behaviour.
Time spent on a training session should reflect some positive result; as soon as you attain some obvious level of
success, reward, then quit.

This degradation is simply a
function of a lack of practice; if
you play golf only once a year,
you’re going to stink at it,
right? Instead of “training then
forgetting,” keep your dog’s
established behaviours sharp by
working them randomly and
regularly, several times each
day.
“Sit” for dinner, “wait” at
doors, “down” at the dog park;
be spontaneous and unpredictable.

Don’t carry on and on, as
you’ll likely bore the dog, and
actually condition it to become
disinterested in the new behaviour. Likewise, don’t end a
session until some evidence of
success is shown, even if it’s a
moment of focus or an attempt
by the dog to try to perform.

Then, each month, teach a new
behaviour—a trick will do—to
keep your dog’s mind and motivation up. The larger your
pet’s repertoire of behaviours,
the smarter he or she gets, and
the more important you become.

Remember that ten one-minute
sessions in a day trumps one
ten-minute session every time.

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