Welcome to the dog training guide

Glad you found your way to the dog training guide! Here you will find everything you need to train your dog. You will get tools to:

Systematically shape your dog's behaviors
Learning new skills
Have a happy and harmonious four-legged friend

Dog training can sometimes seem complicated, but we make it easy. So join us and learn the art of dog training!

5 Benefits of training your dog

Training your dog has many benefits. Here are 5 key reasons to dedicate time to dog training:

It strengthens your relationship
Your dog is mentally stimulated, increasing welfare and health
Preparing your dog for life in general
The interaction between you makes everyday life easier
Boosting your dog's confidence(How to boost your dog's confidence)

Dog life will simply be more fun and easier for both of you!

How to train a dog?

Reward-based dog training

How to teach dogs in a way that is both enjoyable and effective? We focus here on reward-based dog training. It's about reinforcing and rewarding desirable behaviors(About dog rewards and training motivation).

Through an easy-to-understand step-by-step method, you can train your dog in a way that is both fun and rewarding. And the best part? It strengthens the bond between you - win-win!

Interaction over obedience

In this guide, we talk about:

Interaction instead of obedience
Signals instead of commands(Important signals and basics in dog training)

When we see our dogs as equal, empathetic individuals, they blossom in their most beautiful way. By encouraging them to do what we have taught them, they will respond with joy - not fear.

This way you'll have a harmonious dog that loves to learn, and avoid the risks of punishment training, which can lead to fear, aggression and stress.

It should be fun to do the right thing

The learning, reward and emotional centers of the brain in us and other mammals are surprisingly similar. This is also true for dogs. We develop more quickly and respond positively to learning when it takes place in a safe and pleasant environment.

Positive reinforcement

Positive reinforcement means that we focus on giving the dog rewards when it performs behaviors we want to see more of. Avoiding pointing out mistakes, and instead teaching the dog to do the right thing, is effective, ethical and smart dog training!

Two training methods: Grandpa vs Grandma

Grandpa is patient and encouraging

Imagine that you are learning to knit. Your grandfather:

Instructs you calmly how to thread the stitches on the needles
Shows and lets you test
Pepper and praise when you get it right
Smiles and asks you to try again if you drop a worm

It'll be a fun, cozy time, and by the time you're done, you'll be a whiz at knitting.

Grandma is demanding and corrective

Compare this to when grandma shows you how it's done:

She quickly puts up the loops and asks you to get started
When you slip and drop a worm, she says sharply "no, not like that"
She gets impatient, and you try even harder
When you succeed, she says "so yes", but her posture is rigid

You'll keep at it until your fingers ache, because Grandma wants you to learn everything, preferably today.

Praise and reward wins

Both two- and four-legged friends learn better and more easily if they are encouraged and rewarded when they get it right. Ignoring when things go wrong is also information - your dog learns what pays off and what doesn't.

When you use praise and reward:

Your dog will feel joy
Self-confidence gets a boost
You arouse a curiosity that makes your dog dare to test itself

This will allow you to reach your goals faster. Before you start training your dog, think about your reward strategy. What will motivate your dog the most and how does your dog want to be rewarded?

The step-by-step approach

So how do you teach dogs in an educational and easy-to-understand way? Well, dogs benefit from us knowing the goal, what we want to teach them, but breaking down the learning into smaller steps. You simply take one thing at a time.

1. Define what you want to train

Before you start training, think carefully about what you want your dog to learn. It could be:

A moment to "stop"
More general behavior, like being calm in specific situations

If the dog exhibits a behavior you want to train away, think about what you want the dog to do instead.

2. Break down the behavior into small parts

Instead of expecting your dog to understand the whole behavior right away, break it down into smaller steps. For example, if you want to train your dog to lie still for a longer period of time, you can:

Start by rewarding short moments of stillness
Gradually increase the time
Adding disturbances

You will soon learn more about steadiness (endurance in different moments) and about interference training.

3. Teach one step at a time

Focus on one step at a time and be generous in your guidance and help. If you want your dog to learn to spin:

Show the dog the movement by having a reward in your hand
Guide the dog around in a circle
Praise, correct and reward the dog's initiative and when the dog achieves your milestones towards the goal

An interim step could be:

Following your hand with sweets
Turning a quarter turn
Turning half a turn
Finally, a full lap

By giving positive feedback early and often, the dog will more quickly understand what you are working on.

4. Be clear in your guidance & signals

Whether you use:

A guiding hand with rewards in
Shejping
Social learning
Your body language

Make sure that what you do is clear and easy to understand for your dog. Guiding your dog is an easy and quick way to teach a dog different behaviors.

Key training signals

Be consistent when using:

Right signal (Yep, Good, Yes)
Free signal (Okay, Free, Jump and play)
Praise (Good girl!, Good job guy!)

For example, you want to say your right signal in the same way every time. If you change your tone of voice in the middle of training, your dog may get confused.

Timing is important

You will also be clear if you mark and reward with good timing. This means that your "Good" sounds exactly when the dog, for example:

Sitter
Looking at you
Coming to your page
Responds to your call-in signal

Good timing is a training issue for dog trainers and you can easily practice your timing to become an ace dog trainer.

5. Pure dog training

Pure dog training means that you are well prepared and know what to do. This means:

Quietly guide your dog in the right direction
With precision break out in praise and reward
Stop enticing, diverting and bribing
Clearly and cleanly teach a training session

Pure dog training also means offering your dog quiet time to study:

A safe and serene environment
Freedom from external factors that can distract

6. Rewards reinforce behaviors

When the dog performs the behavior or a sub-step correctly, reward immediately with something your dog appreciates:

Tasty morsels
Toy
Bus or coach

It is the reward that reinforces the dog's motivation to perform the behavior. The positive reinforcement helps the dog to associate the behavior with something pleasant, which increases the likelihood of the behavior being repeated by the dog.

7. number of repetitions, breaks and recovery

Keep training sessions short, and give your dog breaks so it doesn't get overstimulated or tired. Signs that your dog is tired and needs to rest may be that the dog:

Becomes unfocused
Getting it wrong where it usually goes right
yawner
Flaming around
Starting to bite
Becomes disinterested in the reward

Individual adaptation

Learning should take time, and each dog learns at its own pace:

Some dogs benefit from 3-5 repetitions before a three-minute break
Others like to work hard for 8-12 repetitions before a five-minute break

Try it out and see what works for your dog. You want a happy, engaged and focused dog whether you do 12 repetitions in a row or 3.

8. Generalize the dog's knowledge

After the dog has learned a behavior in a certain place, you gradually start practicing in other environments and situations, around different distractions. This is so that the dog learns to generalize his knowledge, which means that he will be responsive no matter where you are(How to get a responsive dog!).

The goal is to motivate the dog to perform the behavior regardless:

Location
Time
Disturbance

Start with a calm environment and then increase the level of difficulty. It is wise to train the dog properly in the environment in addition to other dog training.

9. Successive aggravation

Once the dog has understood a step or part of a step, you can gradually make the training more difficult by distraction training. You can:

Extend the time the dog performs the behavior
Adding intricacies like distance
Building a chain of behavior

Introduce one difficulty at a time, making sure the dog is ready for each new step.

10. associate signals with behavior

When the dog knows a behavior, you put on a signal and teach the dog the name of the behavior. You go from treats in hand to learned signals.

You need to repeat the word (e.g. "lie down") in connection with the dog lying down often and over time, before the signal can be brought forward, said before the dog lies down.

Only then does the dog show signs of understanding what the word means. The result is a dog that does what you ask, when you ask it and not just in the hope of a treat - dog trainers call this stimulus control.

11. When are you ready?

When are you actually done with a training session? It depends on your dog and you and your ambitions:

Some feel ready only when the dog performs the task on signal, regardless of interference and in several environments
Others are satisfied when the dog performs the task relatively well using hand signals in simpler environments

You decide when you are satisfied and feel ready.

Continued training

Don't stop practicing or reinforcing a learned behavior you want your dog to perform. If you stop rewarding a behavior altogether, your dog's motivation to perform it will drop.

Therefore, make sure that:

Phasing out some sub-step rewards
Reward variety

Get away from sweets every time by rewarding with:

Leakage
Racing
Gos
Splash in the lake
Play with a dog friend

Your dog needs to continue to see the point of listening to you in order for the interaction to be maintained. Interaction is a bit like fitness, a perishable commodity.