Don’t Make These 3 Common Dog Training Mistakes

You may think that as humans, we should be pretty darn good at training dogs by now, right? We’ve been doing it for thousands of years!But, too often, we make honest errors in training that result in nagging misbehavior and strained relations. Here at Sit Means Sit Dog Training, we’re your trusted Corpus Christi dog trainer and we’re here to give you 3 of the biggest training mistakes we see owners make and to offer alternatives to improve your chances of keeping you and your furry friend on the straight and narrow.

• Maybe you just don’t simply train your dog often enough? Once we teach our dogs the basics, we allow them to go on autopilot. This means that response times for important behaviors can worsen – or worse, they won’t respond! Rather than training your dog and then letting them forget, keep your dog sharp by randomly but regularly working them.
• Are you repeating commands? Does it take your dog 5 or 6 repetitions of the phrase “sit” before it halfheartedly sits? Once you are sure a dog knows a behavior, ask only once! If you are ignored, it’s either because you haven’t taught it properly, or the dog is distracted or simply rebellious.
• Maybe your training sessions are too short or too long? Teaching a dog new behaviors and tricks should be an evolution, not a revolution! The key is in knowing that it’s usually going to take numerous sessions to perfect a new behavior. Your dog will get bored and distracted about 10-15 minutes.