When your dog isn’t responding to you, he is communicating something to you.  Let’s look at how you can create the responses that you want with your dog!

1.) Are you using reward-based dog training?  There are many ways to train your dog.  Any method that instills pain such as spray bottles, shock collars, prong collars, choke collars can create a behavior issue to worsen.  They can also create your dog to feel much fear and anger.  As a result, they may shut down or react out more.  We recommend looking at the positive reinforcement Salt Lake City Dog Trainers to find the perfect match for you.  The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior even recommends avoiding punishment based dog training.

2.) Are you practicing consistently?  If you don’t practice enough with your dog training, it will be difficult for your dog to learn.  We recommend that you train your dog daily for at least 2-5 times a day. Each training session can last 2-5 min in length.

3.) Are you being consistent?  If you are giving mixed messages to your dog it will be unclear on what you are expecting in regards to obedience.

4.) Are you listening to what your dog is communicating to you?  Your dog may not be responding because he needs a training break, is in pain from a medical issue, has a medical imbalance (such as thyroid imbalance, cancer, hormonal imbalance, neurotransmitter imbalance in the brain, etc.) or for many other reasons.  Your dog is not born to do what you say because you say it.  He is communicating to you as much as you are communicating to him.  Are you listening?

5.) Are you grounded?  If you are reacting from ungrounded emotions, you will disempower your obedience success.  It is important that you do NOT project your emotions on your dog.  Consciously choose your actions rather than letting your emotions run you.

6.) Are you receiving support when you need it?  It can be extremely stressful to perform alone with your dog training.  Salt Lake City is surrounded with many dog lovers.  Enroll support with your friends to help you with consistency.  Hire a professional Salt Lake City dog trainer to support you with ultimate obedience if you need it.

7.) Are you expecting too much all at once?   It is important that you break down your communication into small steps so that your dog can digest what you are teaching to him.  Many times we expect too much from our dogs all at once.  Be clear with small instructions that incrementally build up to the behavior you are wanting to train.

8.) Is the environment that you are training in too hard or too distracting?  When you are training something new it always best to keep the distractions and the triggers low.  It might be best to begin training a new behavior inside your home first rather than being outside.  You can gradually increase the level of distractions as your dog is ready.

Ultimate obedience starts with you!  Your dog will not shift because you want to him to shift.  He will shift because you want to him shift and you are taking the above actions to create success with dog training.  Salt Lake City has many environments, dog lovers and dog trainers to give you support that you need!  Create the obedient dog of your dreams now!

Your Turn!  We want to hear from you!  Please write a comment below!

What can you do differently to help create your dog to listen?

Namaste!
Johanna Teresi, Professional Trainer and Owner of Four Legged Scholars LLC, Dog Training, Salt Lake City