What NOT to do in Dog Training

How easy is it to train a dog? Yeh sure, it’s pretty simple to train a sit. But how fun are you making it for your pooch? and when you really get into training and want to advance into agility, how do you tackle the weave poles? When you’re busy training tricks, it’s easy to forget all the little things that you’re doing that could be making a big difference.

Our number one goal is to always make dog training enjoyable for the trainer and the dog. So in this post, we’ll be discussing all the small things you may doing that make a negative bigger impact on your training. We’ll show you what NOT to do and what to do instead.

Contents of This Post

Command Nagging

Yes, it’s a thing, and a very common one too! Command nagging is when you tell your dog a command repeatedly to get them to do it. If you have a dog, you probably have done this at least once because it’s hard not to do it!

So, you ask your dog to sit, then they don’t sit, your instinct is probably to ask them again. Well resist the urge!! When you continue asking your dog to do the same thing, they’ll begin to learn that the command is sit, sit, sit instead of sit. This eventually teaches them that they can take as long as they want to do what you’re asking.

What to do instead

Say sit once. If your dog listens, instantly reward and move onto the next part of your training. If they don’t sit but you know they clearly understand you, make sure they know you’re asking something of them. If they start moving away, stand in front to wait for your sit.

If you realise that they don’t know what you’re talking about then it may be time to go back a step. Revisit the sit command as a whole and make sure your training session is engaging!

Skipping Ahead with Commands

A lot of new puppy parents (and dog parents too) will start off training with sit and drop, then quickly move onto things like paw, spin, jump, weave. I mean, sure sit and drop are useful but there are more impressive tricks, right?

No, while paw, spin and other tricks may be cool and all, forgetting to prioritise commands like sit, drop, stay, come and leave it can result in a dog that is not well behaved. They don’t come when called at the dog park, don’t lie down whilst you eat dinner and don’t stay when asked. Why? Because they don’t know these commands.

There’s a concept in dog training known as ‘building blocks’ where to train one command your dog should know the simpler basic command first. For example: to train an agility jump you need to know stay, to train an A Frame you need target training, training a walking leg weave requires a through, and teaching the roll over is done with drop.

When your dog doesn’t know the basics to the command they are trying to learn, it can become more frustrating for them and turn training into a bad experience.

What to do instead

Start with the basics and make sure your dog knows commands like sit, drop, stay, come and leave it. Make sure you’ve mastered these with your dog and then move onto more advanced tricks and other basics.

If you come to a point in your training where you want to teach your dog a new command, try and think of any commands you should train first to make the future goal of that new tricky command easier for your pooch.

It’s always best to start with the most essential commands first so make sure you prioritise these five commands before anything else!

Practicing in the Same Environment

This is quite an easy one to accidentally be doing. You have a training routine (which is good) where you get ready with the rewards, take your dog to the lounge room, and train with them. And of course, routines are really good to have with your dog (find more in this post) however going to the same location for every training session can become an issue.

So, you’ve been practicing the shake command in your kitchen every day and your dog knows it so well now! Are you sure? Well then you and your pooch go to a dog park, and you randomly try shake there, your dog doesn’t respond. This is because they have only learnt to do shake in your kitchen, they haven’t been taught to do it in other locations and haven’t practiced it in more environments with other distractions.

What to do instead

Take your training everywhere! Get your dog accustomed to doing sit, drop, weave, jump and any other commands in more environments. In your bedroom, in the kitchen, in your garden, at the dog park, inside and outside your dog can practice the command anywhere!

Most of the time, training can be a lot harder when outside because there are more distractions for your dog. The smells of not just your house but next doors, local dogs, and your neighbour’s barbecue! These scents can be very distracting for them so make sure you’re patient and don’t start command nagging!

When you start training your dog in different environments, they will become more used to applying their training to any location. They will have an excellent recall at home and at the dog park (which is very important) and will be able to impress people with their tricks anywhere!

Using Similar Visual Cues

In training we talk about visual and verbal cues, they’re both very essential and are practically the signals that tell your dog what you’re asking. Verbal cues are simple, you choose a word that makes sense for the command you’re teaching like sit, drop, stay, come, over, weave… the list goes on and on. You can practically choose any word for each of your dog’s commands, some people say drop and others say down.

Visual cues are a whole other language. They are basically actions that you do for each of your dog’s commands. Some people use just visual cues, others just verbal cues and some use both together (which we recommend).

So here is where you can run into problems. You’re doing visual cues for your dog, the sit visual cue that you use is holding your hand out with your palm facing up. The drop cue that you do is holding your hand out with your palm facing down. These are two very similar actions with only a minor difference.

Now you try just using a visual cue to ask your dog to drop and they sit, you try it the next day and they drop. What’s happening is your dog can’t easily tell what command you are asking them to do. They might even associate the palm facing down cue and palm facing up cue as the same command because they are so similar!

What to do instead?

Make sure your cues are different! Yeah, it’s that simple. So why would we make a whole section of this post leading up to one sentence? Because it’s so easy to accidentally have similar visual cues. Especially when you have trained many commands you can quickly make a new action but forget it’s like one of the other commands your dog knows!

That’s also why it’s helpful to use visual and verbal cues at the same time so that if your action is confusing for your dog, they can get clarification from your verbal cue. Likewise, if they didn’t hear your verbal cue very well, they can rely on the visual one!

Rushing Your Training

So, you have a new command; for this example, let’s say spin. You start your training session and try spin with your dog. They don’t do it. Try it again and show them how to do it, they do it. So, your dog should know how to spin now right? Wrong.

What to do instead

This one is like the ‘skip ahead with commands’ part of the post but also quite different. When you are teaching a new command to your dog, you might have this thought saying how quickly could we learn it or how soon could we move onto the next trick and sometimes you’ll just expect your dog to magically know how to do what you’re asking.

Well try to forget all those thoughts. When you rush dog training and expect everything to be instant, everything can go wrong. You might start getting frustrated because everything isn’t just clicking how you thought it would. Your dog will be getting frustrated because they really want to please you, but they don’t know what you’re asking them to do when you say spin. When you and your dog are frustrated, training can be turned into a bad experience that isn’t fun. This is the opposite of what we want!

Instead, you need to be patient. Very patient. Sure, sometimes your dog understands a command well and learns it in a day however as awesome as those moments are, most of the time a command can take days, weeks or even months to learn.

Understand that when you start a new command, you’ll might only get through the guided part of the command in the session. For example, if you start training the weave poles, session 1 will most likely end on you luring your dog through the poles with treats – not them weaving through them quickly and perfectly on command.

Then session 2, now they’ll start weaving perfectly? No! Commands can take a while to train with your dog – especially the weave poles that are arguably one of the hardest obstacles to train in agility.

It is possible to train things like sit and paw in a day but don’t go into a session expecting that. It can be a good idea to go into a training session with a new command expecting it to take a week or two to learn. This isn’t doubting your dog’s abilities but giving them more time to learn the command in a fun and enjoyable way instead of feeling the need to rush and learn it instantly.

Something that we like to remind you in a lot of our training posts is that if you notice your dog getting frustrated, it could be a good idea to have a break and stop the session for the day. This translates to new commands, if you’re practicing a new one and your dog gets frustrated, consider moving onto something they know well.

And the most important thing to do in training? Use positive reinforcement!

So, whilst training a dog can seem straightforward, there is more to it than that and it requires different techniques to keep the session fun and effective. We always want dogs to enjoy training and so hopefully with the information in this post you can bring that joy to the sessions with your pooch! So, when’s your next training session?

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