Your Dog's learning period can be divided into five phases:
The Teaching Phase - This is the phase where you must physically demonstrate to your Dog exactly what you want him to do.
The Practicing Phase - Practice makes Perfect. Once a lesson is learnt, practice with your Dog what you have just taught him.
The Generalizing Phase - Here you must continue practicing with your Dog in different locations and in an environment with a few distractions. You can take your Dog out for a walk, or to a nearby park and command him to practice whatever you've taught him.
Practicing the learned lessons in multiple locations and in the presence of small distractions will help him learn and retain lessons better .
The Testing Phase - Once you're sure that your Dog has achieved almost 90% success....he responds correctly almost every time you give a command, you must start testing his accuracy in newer locations with a lot of distractions.
Example: Take him to the local shopping mall and ask him to obey your command. He may not come up with the correct response the very first time you do this, but you must not lose hope.
The idea is to test your Dog to see how he responds in an environment which is new to him. Set-up a situation where you are in control of the environment and your Dog.
There are only 2 possibilities:
- Your Dog succeeds!!! (Trumpets please!)
- In case your Dog fails, re-examine the situation. Review and/or change your training. Then try testing again.
Keep on testing until he succeeds. Follow the rule of the 3 Ps – patience, persistence, praise.
Internalizing Phase - Finally, comes the extremely rewarding phase where your Dog does everything he is taught to do even without your commands.
Remember:
- Never scold your Dog if he fails. It's not his fault. You have failed as a trainer!
- You must be patient and persistent for your efforts to show rewards.
- Appreciate and love your Dog when he does it right! A little encouragement will work wonders for your Dog.
- Dog Training is easy when you do it right.
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