Training your puppy is the best way to have the dog you’ve been dreaming of. Training teaches your puppy the skills to live harmoniously in our human-focused world. Like most things in life, training is a skill you will learn, and it’s easy to make mistakes. This article will highlight common puppy training mistakes that can ruin your dog’s behaviour and help you to avoid them.
Making Training Too Boring
Training your puppy is a serious business; you want your puppy to behave appropriately and have the necessary skills to deal with daily life. However, just because it’s a serious business doesn’t mean it can’t be fun for you and your puppy.
Keeping your training sessions short (5-10 minutes at a time is enough), fun and rewarding will create a bond with your puppy and make it want to spend time with you learning. Puppies love to play, and training can be turned into fun games your puppy will want to participate in.
Rushing Your Puppy
Each puppy will learn at a different pace; some will pick things up quickly, and some will need the steps broken down and a bit more time to catch on. Observing your puppy for signs of confusion will make training easier for both of you.
If your puppy starts sniffing around, scratching, turning away or randomly picking things up to bring to you, that is all an indicator that your puppy is confused. Stop and rethink how you train the steps, and try a different approach. Puppies can get frustrated, too, and you don’t want the training to become a negative experience.
Repeating Cues
Repeating cues is a common mistake, also known as cue nagging. You ask your puppy (or dog) to do something, and it ignores you or is too distracted to pay attention to you, so you repeat it. For example, instead of ‘come’ in recall training, your puppy learns to wait for the cue ‘come, come, come’.
Getting your puppy’s attention first and then saying the cue is best. Dogs have a severe case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and if you sound and act excited about something, they will want to know what it is. I often had to have a mini party and act like a lunatic to get my dog’s attention during recall training.
Poisoning Cues
It’s easy to turn a cue into a negative one for a puppy. If you ask your puppy to come and immediately put its lead on to take it home, the puppy can associate ‘come’ with the fun ending. Giving your puppy a cue then followed by something it doesn’t like is enough to make your puppy reluctant to follow the cue in the future.
During recall training, it’s helpful to call your puppy back, reward it, put the lead on, keep walking for a few minutes, and let your puppy off the lead again. Doing this randomly when you’re out means your puppy won’t associate ‘come’ with the fun ending.
Being Stingy With Rewards
The idea is to teach your puppy that some behaviours are more rewarding than others (the undesirable behaviours we don’t want the puppy to do). Therefore, if the puppy doesn’t find the behaviour rewarding, it won’t want to repeat it. In the beginning, heavily reward those desirable behaviours that you want your puppy to repeat.
Lots of praise and a happy, excited tone of voice help your dog feel like it’s making the right choices. Couple the praise with either treats or a favourite toy, and your puppy will think it’s hit the jackpot during every training session. Which in turn will make your puppy want to do more with you.
It’s essential to have something your puppy REALLY likes and finds rewarding – a little piece of sausage, cooked chicken, a little taste of cheese. High-value rewards can be used to reward high-value behaviours such as recall. Match the reward to the behaviour.
When the cues and behaviours are secure, you can cut down on the treats – don’t stop them altogether; the treats will become random. Your puppy will want to work for them as they don’t know when they’ll get a treat. Praise should always be given, as your dog wants to know it’s doing the right thing.
Rewarding At The Wrong Time
Timing is crucial in training. You have to give the reward as your puppy is doing the desired behaviour/action. Whatever your puppy is doing at the time you provide the treat is what you are reinforcing. For example, you ask your puppy to sit, and it sits, but as you give it the treat, the puppy stands up – you’ve reinforced your puppy standing. Be prepared with the treat when you give the cue, and give the treat as soon as the behaviour is performed.
Inconsistancy = Confusion
Consistency is super important during training. It may be unsure what you expect if you don’t reward and praise your puppy every time. Or you use (or other people use) different words or very similar words for a behaviour. Dogs can understand and associate simple words with a desired behaviour. However, they don’t speak our language, and words that sound similar can be misunderstood.
Getting Frustrated With Your Puppy
It can be easy to become frustrated with your puppy during training, but letting your frustration show can have a massive negative impact on your puppy. Dogs are masters at reading our body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. They may not understand our vocal language, but know how we feel.
Your puppy will not understand why you are frustrated with it, which can cause it to be anxious or fearful. A nervous or fearful puppy won’t feel safe or be in the appropriate mindset to learn. An anxious or fearful puppy is much harder to train than a relaxed, happy and confident puppy.
It also means that the dog/human bond will be eroded. If you feel frustrated, stop the training and take a step back. Play with your puppy for a few minutes so that it reassures your puppy. The trusting bond between human and dog is more important long-term than how quickly your puppy learns something.
Training using positive reinforcement creates an environment where your puppy feels safe, even if it makes a mistake. It will feel confident to try and learn, knowing that it will not be punished, but instead be guided using kind methods. We all make mistakes, including dogs, and if a dog is scared to make a mistake, it will be too afraid to try and learn.
Having Unrealistic Expectations
Puppies aren’t born knowing what we want from them. They need guidance in the behaviours we find acceptable. Many so-called problems are just doggy behaviours, dogs doing what dogs do. We can encourage the behaviours we want by rewarding them; the undesirable behaviours will still be there; however, we can teach the puppy alternative acceptable behaviours instead.
Like us, puppies each have an individual personality and nature. They think and sometimes make the wrong choices – I know I sometimes make unwise choices. Like us, dogs are fallible; they make mistakes; it’s unrealistic to think that your puppy or dog should NEVER make mistakes or make the wrong choice.
Puppies learn at different paces and find learning some things easier and others more difficult. In training, it’s essential to look at the skills it already has and start teaching the skills it needs at its pace. Your puppy may pick things up quickly, and that’s great. However, your puppy may take longer and require the skills broken down into easier steps, and that’s also great. Train the puppy in front of you, not the idea of the puppy in your head!
You may find these articles helpful:
Dog Breed Traits And How It Affects Training
You’re Grounded! What Is Grounding For Dogs
Dog Submissive (Appeasement) Urination: Urinates When Anxious Or Nervous
Leave a Reply