Lifestyle Training

The dog park is a wonderful place to practice training.  If you recall your dog for short training sessions every couple of minutes, then tell them to go play again, you are using the other dogs as both a powerful distraction and reward.

Good dogs are fun to be around.  A dog that’s well-behaved and always under control will get to go out into the world and meet lots of people.  They’ll be happier and you’ll be happier.

There’s nothing like a little competition to motivate people and dogs.  Competing against others and your own personal bests will drive you and your dog to really excel.

A rock solid, lightening quick “Down” (or “Sit” for that matter) solves just about every problem in dog training, and also happens to be very useful in agility competition.  Just practice it!

For energetic dogs it can be difficult maintaining control because they’re always moving so quickly.  If you can train your dog to slow down on command, it means you can practice speeding up on command

This little owner has excellent control of their dog, and she did it by making training fun.  It keep the dog interested and engaged and it means that they only punishment she ever uses is to end the training session.

The more fun you can make training, the more you and your dog will want to practice, and the better behaved your dog will be.  Use games to make training into a good time.

It’s easy to teach your dog to speed up and slow down. Alternate periods of moving quickly and slowly, giving them the appropriate cues before hand.

Games motivate everyone and make training fun and exciting.  Just make sure you always maintain control of the dog so they don’t get over-excited.

If you make training fun and integrate it into your dog’s life, then it will become completely self-reinforcing, eliminating the need for any sort of external rewards.