Obedience dog training is one of the most important things you can do to help your dog have a happy and healthy life.
Obedience training is different from teaching tricks. While both are a great way to bond with your dog, obedience training is teaching your dog essential skills and commands to ensure their safety, improve their quality of life, and make them a well-behaved companion.
✅ RECOMMENDED
✅ Start with the basics
These are the essential commands your dog should know and should reliably do in any situation. Some of them can literally save their life:
- Name: When you say their name, they come to you and make eye contact.
- Sit: Your dog sits until you give a release command (e.g. “free”).
- Down: Your dog lays down until you give a release command. Note how both sit and down implicitly mean “stay”.
- Come (recall): Similar to their name, but “come” is a stronger form of recall.
- Leave it: Ignore something that previously had your dog’s attention. “Leave it” means they can never get that item (e.g. imagine something dangerous on the sidewalk).
- Drop it: Automatically drop whatever your dog has in their mouth.
Look for YouTube videos for each of the commands. These are often very easy to teach! The hard part is practicing to make them reliable.
✅ Start right away
Training can begin as soon as you bring your puppy home at around 8 weeks old. Gradually increase the difficult over time.
✅ Keep it calm, short, and fun
Training should be a positive experience for your dog. Always bring a calm, positive energy. Keep training sessions short and reward with play afterwards.
✅ Practice
Commands must be reliable, especially the ones that are critical for their safety (e.g. leave it, drop it, come). Practice often and practice in different places and with different levels of distraction.
✅ Say commands once
Don’t say “sit, sit, sit” as this teaches your dog to tune you out over time. Say a command once (e.g. “sit”) and wait for your dog to follow through. If they don’t, go back to earlier steps in the process of teaching that command.
✅ Sign up for a class
Obedience training can be tricky! Timing, tone of voice, and body language are all crucial. Signing up for a class with a professional dog behaviorist can make the process go faster.
❌ NEVER DO
❌ Train while frustrated
Obedience training takes time and is often not natural to humans, so it is perfectly normal to get frustrated. However dogs can sense frustration and it impedes the learning process. If you are frustrated, end the training session and try again later.
❌ Punish your dog
All dog training relies on positive reinforcement and building trust. Do not punish your dog if they are not getting a command. Instead, take a break and go back to earlier steps of the training process.