TopDog Headquarters, LLC

TRAINING FUNDAMENTALS

Prior to beginning to teach any new exercise, you the handler must have a complete understanding of the exercise you want to teach, have decided exactly what it is you want the dog to do, thoroughly understand what your final expectations are and clearly comprehend where each particular skill being taught fits into the entire exercise. Keep in mind everything needs to be trained for and this includes the three D's - duration, distance and distraction.

Random Basic Training Tips:

• Determine what motivates your dog;
• Break the desired behavior down into as many steps as necessary;
• Work on only one skill or portion of the exercise at a time;
• Then chain all behaviors together into the final product;
• Because a dog responds to a command once, don’t assume the command is known; dogs take a picture in their mind and all those things have to be there to repeat the exercise. It could be mistake or random event;
• Five short sessions are better than one long one. Better if distributed over several days;
• Don’t use the word “no” - always use a command that has been taught;
• Initial training should be done in a distraction free environment;
• Keep cues simple;
• Be consistent;
• Begin and end lessons on positive notes;
• Training and play should be indistinguishable to you and your dog;
• Reinforce the correct behavior;
• One instructor initially.

LEARNING PHASE

Never use corrections in this learning phase – these are only allowed once the dog knows a command and should be minimized as much as possible at all times.

When you are convinced that your the dog has learned (and most people assume they know before they really do) and proved they know the behavior, then you can move to the next phase of training.

Enforcement Stage

PROOFING PHASE

Starting out with mild distractions you then gradually introduce distractions that are great enough to cause disobedience. The greater the distraction the more likely the dog is going to disobey or not respond in a timely manner.

Distraction training never ends. You want to introduce new distractions and new situations to your dog on a regular basis and help them learn how to be more reliable in every day situations.

You need to specifically train for distractions. If I had a dime for every time someone told me their dog does it at home perfectly, but it all falls apart when we go into public.  Why would you expect anything else?

YOU HAVE NOT SPECIFICALLY TRAINED FOR IT! EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TRAINED EXPLICITLY FOR!

If the training method you are using does not have one or more of these phases then you should start looking for one that has them all. You will get better results as a result.