The dog training basics are usually the easiest to achieve. All you need is to be consistent in behavior with your dog and extremely free with rewards and praise. Exactly like you would for a child, you should make a list for do’s and don’ts for your dog and be consistent in reinforcing it all the time till it learns it. Dog training basics cover the most common commands for a dog.

Daily Schedule of Affection and Praise

The dog training basics can be taught on a daily schedule through affection and reinforcing good behavior with praise and treats, while punishing bad behavior with stern voice and newspaper whacks [when you want to hit your puppy, you should not use a stick which will pain it and also instill fear; you need to roll a newspaper and use that for punishment. The sound of the impact is very loud, but it will not cause any pain. The puppy will be startled enough to stop the bad behavior].

The first and most important aspect of training your dog is to be able to capture its attention. This can be achieved by getting the pet focused on you for a certain amount of time, and then increase that time span gradually. A good way to do this is to hold a treat in your mouth (between your teeth) and call your dog’s name. Order it to watch you and try to hold its attention initially for a short while, and then increase this time to a reasonable amount time, say from 30 seconds to about 5 minutes.

Keeping it Short and Sweet

Dogs like children have a limited attention span. As long as they see variety, they will be happy with whatever you try to teach them. But if it becomes boring, you will loose their interest and then it will be difficult to get them excited to learn new tricks. You need to keep the sessions short and interesting; these also have to be repeated at the same time every day so that it becomes a routine. Couple training with your dogs walk or things that it enjoys so it will look forward to the session as fun, and not as a task.

The Basics of the Basics

Many times, just talking with your dog as you would any person will help in the training process. There are many instances where dogs ‘understand’ everything their owners’ say, without them ever trying to train their pets. This happens often when there is very close interaction between the dog and the owner, as dogs respond best to love and praise. There are often simple fundamentals such as these that are closer to common sense than they are to dog training basics.