Dog obedience training that includes anything other than positive reinforcement and gentle correction can be damaging to your pet!
If you have been researching obedience training techniques, resources, and professional trainers, you will have noticed that there are different styles of dog training everywhere you look.
The main point of dog obedience training for most people is to get their dog to perform certain basic or even advanced skills in order to protect, first and foremost, the dog. An obedient dog is a safe dog. This should not come at the cost of their psychological well-being though.
Everyone knows you can have a fairly obedient dog if you make them fearful of negative consequences. The irony here is that dogs will always seek to please their owners when the relationship is built on positive reinforcement. They want and desire your happiness and praise. Therefore, the most obedient of dogs are the dogs that get plenty of proper training that is gentle but firm, and always positively geared.
I would have never thought this article would be necessary until I came to know about trainers through the internet who have a totally different philosophy. While I knew that anyone with a credit card and a computer could open a web site, I had a hard time when I realized that some extremely unpleasant people were working with dogs that had no business doing so.
Therefore, I have put this article together in order to help everyone that I can to achieve dog obedience the right way and, if you are looking to choose a trainer, how to choose one wisely. Your beloved dog’s mental and even physical well-being is quite literally at stake here.
Do It Yourself
There is one great dog obedience training book I recommend over all others when it comes to training your dog with positive reinforcement to do literally anything a dog is capable of doing, while maintaining a happy, healthy mental state.
Adam Katz – a wonderful trainer who has written a book that every dog owner should have, called Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.
In this dog obedience training book you will find every trick available to dog owners for developing an obedient, happy and safe dog. You will be able to do everything a good professional trainer would do after reading and applying what you learn from this book.
Select A GOOD Trainer
You really need to take some time with this one. First of all, you should visit a dog obedience training center you are considering and watch a training session if at all possible. Watch how the trainer interacts with the dogs and how the dogs are treated.
Watch for positive, healthy interaction. Trainers can be firm with corrections (verbally only!) but not over the top and definitely not violent. Positive behavior should be met with positive praise and rewards like petting and play.
Trainers should not simply train with treats as the only positive reinforcement. This is setting the dogs up to expect something to chew every time they do a good thing, which is not, of course, a good thing.