[162] Dog Obedience Training

Training your dog to be obedient is a long and frustrating process. All you want him to do is listen when you call him and yell at him, can that really be that complicated? But then when you think about it you think about how difficult it is to “train” children to do what you say, to follow rules and obey. Training your dog to be obedient is actually quite easy in comparison.

Dog training in obedience can get to be tiresome but of course is necessary for a happy home and happy dog. It seems to be a widely-held school of though that a well trained dog is a happy dog and of course, you are a happier person when your dog listens to you and doesn’t go to the bathroom on your carpet or chew on your furniture.

Most dogs are fairly smart animals and learn pretty quickly. And if all you want is the basics, dog training for obedience can go quite quickly. Sit, stay, heel, lie down, roll over, are all pretty easy concepts and things that most dogs do naturally so not really that hard to teach. Instead you only have to teach them to associate a hand signal or word you say with something they probably do every day.

Of course here is where the dog treats come in; the basic reward for good behavior that every animal craves. The only problem is that they tend to associate the act they are to perform not only with your words or hand signals but also with the following reward and are quite disappointed when the treat ceases to follow. If your dog is anything like my dog then they probably cease to do whatever it is you wanted them to do. At this point you realize that your dog is probably going to be getting fat for a while.