When it comes to training your pet, specifically a dog, everyone will have an opinion of what you should or shouldn’t do. The truth is that you will hear all sorts of views, some good and some misleading.

Whether you are a dog trainer, or you want to train your dog yourself, you need to be careful about how you handle your canine friend. Some techniques can cause psychological and physical stress to your dog.

Here are the most common dog-training mistakes to avoid.

1) Being Too Harsh When Instilling Discipline

Training animals can be frustrating at times. However, using punishment won’t make the situation better.

Dogs are more likely to respond to instructions if you give them positive reinforcement and treats every time they follow instructions.

Yelling, staring down, hitting them, or any other form of harsh discipline will have negative consequences on your dog. Such actions may provoke aggressiveness, instil fear, or even result in physical harm to your pet.

Take time to research how you can earn your dog’s respect without being too harsh.

2) Late Training

Just like a child needs to learn things from a young age, you need to train your puppy from an early age. No matter the age of your dog, training should start as soon as they walk into your home.

Waiting until your dog starts developing bad habits or gets older might bring more problems with behaviour management.

Although young puppies might not be in a position to learn advanced actions, they should learn how to respond to basic commands.

This behavioural training helps in forming a deeper bond between the trainer and the puppy. It also helps them to grow and mature accustomed to certain routines.

3) Using Shock Collars on Puppies

A shock collar or electronic collar is a training device designed to control stubborn behaviours such as food aggression and excessive barking. Although the design of shock collars is to control behaviour and not punish the dog, they might not work if your canine friend has not mastered basic commands.

According to dogtelligent.com, it’s not advisable to use a shock collar when training your puppy. If you must, do it as a last resort after exhausting all other options.

The reason for this is this device could make your puppy grow anxious and stressed if they don’t understand the purpose of the shock.

4) Inconsistent Response

Dogs can get confused whenever the trainer’s response is inconsistent. 

For instance, if you’ve trained your dog not to lie on the couch, allowing him on certain occasions will leave them confused. The dog will not understand why you get mad sometimes and permit it at other times.

Another example is begging for food or other treats. If you train your dog not to get food from people when they are eating, don’t break the rule by feeding it during meals. The dog will get the wrong idea and associate begging with rewards.

5) Wrong Timing

Dogs will associate every reward with a particular action. If you want to reward them, make sure it happens within a second or two.

If you take too long to give the reward, your dog might associate the treat with a different action.

6) Command Nagging

This action happens when you keep repeating a cue whenever your dog fails to respond immediately.

A good example is when using the word “come.” Your dog might fail to respond to the command, so you keep repeating it.

This kind of repetition will make him not pay attention in the future until you keep mentioning the word many times.

Final Thoughts

You can’t use a “one-size-fits-all” approach when training your pet. Handle every case differently and switch to a training method that works best for your canine friend.