83% of households in the United States have dogs as members of their family.
But, how do you make sure your pets are behaving their best?
That’s where using positive reinforcement can help you out. Check out this guide to positive reinforcement training for dogs.
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What Is Positive Reinforcement Training?
Positive reinforcement training is where you reward your pets for behaving well rather than punishing them for behaving badly. You try and teach your children to make good choices, right? The same is true for your dogs.
Positive reinforcement training is actually beneficial for most animals, so if you have other pets in your household, think about trying it out for the whole group!
How to Do Positive Reinforcement Training
When you’re training your dog to obey commands, make sure you keep them short and sweet. Most dogs can’t understand long, involved phrases or commands. Start with easy commands first, like teaching your dog to sit or stay.
You can also use positive training to get your dog to follow cues. When you open the door for your dog, you can use positive enforcement to get them to go in or leave the house. Enrolling your dog in a Huntsville dog training company class can greatly improve the behavior of your pet.
What Tools Do You Use for Positive Reinforcement Training?
You’ll want to have lots of treats on hand for your positive reinforcement training. When your dog does something you want them to do, they get a treat! However, you don’t want to go overboard on treats since that can cause problems for your dog’s diet.
Other ways you can give your dog positive reinforcement include praising your dog, giving new toys to play with, or petting them. These forms of reinforcement can take a lot longer since your dog also has to understand that these things are a reward, which they don’t need to learn for food.
You can try combining multiple rewards until your dog learns to associate positivity with other forms of praise.
You can also hire a professional to help you train your dog. Check out mindbodypaws.dog to get started on your journey.
Keep Your Positive Reinforcement Fun
When dogs get bored, they’re more likely to misbehave. So, keeping your training methods fun will help your animals stay engaged with the learning process. This is about your attitude, too.
Don’t get frustrated when your dog has trouble picking up new commands. Instead, take deep breaths, and take breaks when you need to. Don’t shout at your dog when they get things wrong. Adding negativity to the process will just confuse them.
Try Out Positive Reinforcement Training for Dogs Today
There are clear benefits to positive reinforcement training for your furry friends. So, it may be time to start trying it out so that your whole family will get around better.
Do you need more advice for keeping your pets healthy and happy? Take a look at a few of our other articles for more.
