Navigate the wide world of dog training methods!
When you’re a first-time dog owner most people desire a dog who is friendly and behaves well, and, as you’ll come to find out, a dog doesn’t come with an owner’s manual on how to train them! What can be even more confusing and frustrating is that when you do a little research on training, there are so many ways to go about it!
At The Vet Set, we understand the difficulty in choosing a training method, which is why we’ve composed some of the most popular dog training methods to help guide you in your journey. Join us and weave through the different methods and get a better idea of how you want to train your dog.
6 Common Methods Of Dog Training
Even as we explore the different dog training methods, in the dog community, how to train your dog can be hotly contested — professionals love to disagree and debate which methods are most effective and even ethical. Below are common methods with information on who might benefit from them.
Positive Reinforcement
This is much like the human behavior theory — the more a good behavior is rewarded, the more likely it will continue. And, if bad behavior is ignored with no rewards, it will stop.
For dogs, if punishment needs to happen, the removal of rewards such as a treat or toy occurs, but harsh and cruel punishment isn’t a part of the positive reinforcement in dog training.
Begin by rewarding your dog based on desired behaviors, immediately after it happens. You can use small treats in your pocket and dole them out with every good behavior. Treats and rewards are the way dogs come to know and associate the behavior with the reward.
Some will also impart clicker training with positive reinforcement to better solidify and give the dog a signal that the good behavior has been completed. It’s important to stick with brevity when it comes to the training with simple commands such as sit, stay, and come.
Positive reinforcement dog training requires consistency, so if you’re in a household with a family, significant other, or roommates, the commands and reward needs follow through from everyone.
The training begins with rewards seconds after the good behavior happens and then it can become gradually less rewarded as the desired behavior becomes more consistent. Remember that only wanted behaviors should be rewarded so if your is barking incessantly at a squirrel outside, letting them out is actually rewarding the behavior even though the barking stops.
This training has received some criticism because if you’re rewarding with treats, it’s easy to overfeed your dog when they’re learning, so again, using small treats is important.
This is an easy method for first-time dog owners and is relatively easy as long as the training stays consistent for your dog to learn good behaviors.
Clicker Dog Training
Clicker training is rooted in operant conditioning which is also based in learning through rewards and punishment for behavior, and also relies greatly on positive reinforcement.
Clicker training is even sometimes grouped as a part of positive reinforcement training instead of being its own separate method. The major distinction is that in clicker training, owners and trainers rely on a device that makes a quick, audible noise (whistle or clicker) that signals to a dog when the desired behavior has been completed.
Dog trainers like clicker training because it signals to a dog the exact behavior that is being rewarded and it can be used to solidify new behaviors and better address verbal commands.
Clicker training is pretty simple: first, the dog needs to understand that when they here a click, they know a reward is coming. Then the dog can associate a specific behavior with the click, thus the reward. Lastly, verbal communication can be replaced for them to form a new association.
We’ve explored two of the six dog training methods including positive reinforcement and clicker dog training. There are still four methods to cover, so look for part two in the near future!
What dog training method have you found successful? Tell us in the comments below!