Why Dogs make Training Mistakes

September 18, 2015 at 9:28 pm

By Mindy Jarvis, Owner of Noblebigstock-Pug-in-a-pile-of-data-tape-7002683

One very important aspect of training your dog is to recognize why your dog is making mistakes. Once you understand why your dog made a mistake, it makes it much easier to fix the mistake.

  1. Too many distractions –When you are training your dog, you will want to start training in a very undistracted area. Then once they are 90% efficient without distractions you can then up the distractions slowly.
  2. Your dog is not motivated – For your dog to perform a command there must be something in it for him of equal or greater value. You may need to up the value of your motivator to get a better result and/or not allow him to get “FREE TREATS”.
  3. Your dog truly may not understand what you want –This is typically due to your pup not having had enough experience being guided and prompted into the behaviors.
  4. You are not giving your dog clear signals –Your dog speaks through body signals. Because of this, it is very important to keep you hand and body signals consistent with what you have taught her. A slight change in your hand position can mean something completely different to your dog than what you think you are communicating.
  5. The exercise is too difficult – You may need to make the exercise you are working on easy enough for your dog to be successful the majority of the time, otherwise she may become disinterested and/or frustrated.

For successful training….

  1. Make sure you train your dog in the beginning without major distractions so your dog can focus and learn.
  2. You will want to make sure you have a reward in the form of a treat, toy, or activity that will motivate your dog to work.
  3. Once that is set into place you need to make sure that you are communicating with your voice and hand signals clearly and consistently.
  4. Work the exercises at an easy level until your dog is 90% successful, then increase the difficulty by adding a single or multiple variable of distance, duration, or distractions.
  5. If your dog is not succeeding at a certain level of training, even though they have proven they can do it in the past, set them up for success by making it a tad bit easier and work up from there.

For more information, visit www.noblebeastdogtraining.com