Im So Confused About Dog Training!

You brought home the cutest little puppy. You thought he would be easy to train. After all, how hard could it be? That was before you saw the Dog Whisperer on TV, talked to a trainer about clicker training, and read half a dozen web sites online about training your dog in one week. Then you picked up a few books about dog training and managed to confuse yourself even more. Now you're afraid to touch your puppy. You have no idea what you're doing.

As you have already discovered, there are many ways of training a dog. There is no one "best" way. All of them have their advocates. Different methods and strategies work for different people and dogs. Some approaches work better for some dogs at different times.

Many people achieve the best training results from picking and choosing among the various kinds of dog training ideas. You may love to teach your dog using clicker training but there could be times when teaching by simple repetition works best for you. You may try to always keep your training sessions fun for your dog but you like to assert yourself as the leader during training, too. You would never do anything to harm your dog but you do like to use a basic choke chain during your training. And so on. There can be many ways of combining elements from different kinds of dog training to work with your own dog.

Even for something as simple as teaching your dog to sit there are many different approaches. Some people like to use food -- they may hold a piece of food over the dog's head and slowly move it until the dog is in a sitting position. Then give it to the dog as a reward. Other people may prefer to train the Sit using a clicker. When the dog sits they will click and reward. They will repeat this, using the "Sit" command, until the dog is sitting simply on the command. Other people prefer to put the dog in the sitting position by using their hands, and then reward the dog. They repeat this until the dog associates the act of sitting with the reward. There are a number of variations on these training methods. All of them work! It's easy to teach your dog to sit. What matters is that you find a way of doing it that feels right to you and your dog.

The most important thing about training methods is understanding how and why they work so you can apply them properly. If you understand why the training method works and you and your dog are communicating, then the method is successful for you. That's what matters.

Most good training methods have a few things in common. They stress good communication. They require that you remain calm and positive during training. You should offer praise and rewards of some kind to your dog, even if the reward is a play session or petting. If you feel yourself getting angry or upset you should end the session. And, you should try to end all of your training sessions on a positive note.

You can try several exercises using different training methods to see how you and your dog like them. Or, you can read about them and see how you feel about them. You can get an intuitive sense of whether or not a training method would work for you and your dog. Sometimes you may like a method or it may appeal to you on paper but it may not be a good fit for your dog. Every dog is different so what works for one dog may be totally wrong for another dog.

Don't be afraid to try new things. Even experienced trainers who have been training dogs for years can learn new tricks. You don't have to choose one training method and stay with it for the rest of your life. Dog training is something that you never stop learning. There are always new things to learn when it comes to dogs.