Having a well-trained dog is important for your relationship with your pup inside your home and out. Even if you hire a professional trainer to work with your dog, you’ll continue the training at home and reinforce those positive behaviors. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of 5 priceless dog training hacks from professional dog trainers to help you create a stress-free training environment and speed up your pup’s learning.
Before bringing home a new puppy or rescue dog, be sure to read these tips! They will make pet parenting life easier, help your pup learn faster, and help you keep your belongings intact!
About These Training Tips and Tricks for Dogs
My husband and I have worked with several professional obedience and sports trainers throughout the years with our dogs and have learned invaluable dog training tips to make our lives easier when working with and training them.
These are not new commands to teach your dog. These tips and mindset adjustments are for you, the pet parent, to apply to your dog training sessions.
Let’s dive right in to the 5 professional dog training tips that will kickstart your journey to having a well-trained pup. I’m excited to share them with you!
Get Your Dog Comfortable with a Leash
Dogs need to know how to walk comfortably on a leash, but if you don’t let them warm up to it, they’ll never understand that a leash is not a big deal. It will be a point of contention, you’ll struggle to put the leash on them, and they will pull on leashed walks.
The best way for a dog to get used to a leash is to desensitize them to it. By having it around them at first (not trying to put it on them) during normal, everyday activities, and then working up to wearing the leash, they will start to understand that a leash is not a threat.
Follow these steps to desensitize your dog to leashes:
Days 1-2:
- Place your dog’s leash on the ground near where your dog is playing.
- If your dog goes over to sniff and investigate, say “yes”, “good”, or use your own marker word. Follow this verbal reward with a treat for your dog.
- If your dog is hesitant to go near the leash, place a trail of treats leading to the leash. Even better if you also add a high-value reward (like its all-time favorite treat or toy) on the leash.
- During your dog’s mealtime, place the leash next to his or her bowl. You’re your pup has finished eating, remove the food bowl and the leash.
- When you hold or pet your dog, also hold the leash and treat your pup anytime it shows interest in the leash.
Days 3-4:
- Hold the leash in one hand and treats in the other – keeping both hands behind your back. Present the leash to your dog about a foot away from its nose. The moment your dog sniffs the leash, say “yes” or “good”, give your pup a treat, and then put your hands (with the treats and leash) behind your back again. Repeat this several times. It’s best to end this training session before your pup gets bored with the game – end on a high note!
Day 5:
- Touch the leash to your dog’s neck while offering a treat at the same time. Repeat this step several times in one session and hold multiple sessions per day. If you’re using a click-on leash that hooks onto a collar, continue this step for days 6-7.
Days 6-7:
- If you’re using a slip leash (not the slip-on kind), hold up the leash opening, place your hand (filled with a few treats) through it, and offer then to your pup. Mark with a “yes” or “good when they take the food.
- This next step is similar, but you’ll want to hold your hand slightly back (not as far through the leash opening) so your dog has to put their nose through to get to the treats in your hand. Repeat this step several times, each time trying to get more and more of their head through the loop.
Day 8:
- Repeat the steps from days 6-7, only this time when your dog puts their head all the way through the leash to get the treats on your hand, gently put the leash down so it’s hanging loosely from its neck. Take the leash off while giving your dog treats. Repeat multiple times in a session and hold multiple sessions per day.
Day 9:
- Repeat the step from day 8, but this time when the leash is on your dog’s neck, lay the rest of the treats on the ground for him or her to eat and tighten the leash around its neck.
- Walk to another room while calling for your dog to “come” and treat your pup when they get to you. The leash will be dragging on the ground and that’s ok! Keep going to different areas in your house (or even in your backyard letting them sniff around) calling for your dog to follow and treating him or her when they arrive.
Day 10-11:
- When the leash is on your dog, hold the handle end and treat your dog. Continuing to hold the leash handle, walk into another room and have them follow. Treat along the way and when you arrive at a different spot in your house.
- When you and your dog are comfortable, try this step in your front yard and eventually around your neighborhood block. Remember to keep treats on hand and reward that good leash behavior!
Adjust the above timing for each step as needed, and don’t move to the next step until you feel your dog is ready.
Getting a puppy or newly adopted dog takes time and patience but it will be worth it in the long run! Vet visits will be easier, and walks will be calmer.
This same general method can be used for desensitizing your dog to collars and harnesses too!
Have Realistic Expectations
It takes time to learn anything new, so give your dog plenty of opportunities to practice, and don’t expect results overnight. Just like humans, dogs learn at different paces, so what one dog may have picked up in a day may take two weeks for another dog.
Knowing this has taken the pressure off my husband and me when working with our dogs in obedience or new tricks. We don’t hold our dogs to a higher standard than we hold ourselves.
Utilize the Three C’s in Your Training
The three C’s of training stand for clarity, consistency, and calmness – and they are oh so important to remember any time you’re working on training with your dog.
To make the most of training time with our dogs and help them to understand and learn, just incorporate the three C’s.
Clarity
Simply put, clarity means to communicate clearly. This is already a challenge with our dogs because we don’t speak the same language. To communicate with our dogs, we have to rely on vocal sounds, hand signals, and commands. And when a dog communicates to us it’s with their actions and sounds.
If we don’t clearly communicate with our dogs, and teach them what we expect from that communication, we will get unclear responses.
All too many times, I’ve seen pet parents give too many audible asks to their dog, which leads to confusion on the dog’s end and frustration on the human’s part. We need to communicate clearly to our dog what we want it to do, whether it’s new behavior or redirecting a negative behavior. Dogs don’t know what a word means until they are taught the action associated with that word that is expected of them.
One way to teach the meaning of a word is by luring. Before even introducing a word/verbal command to your dog, hold a treat in your hand and use that hand to lure the dog into the desired position (like sit or down). Only once the dog starts picking up on that behavior or movement should you start paring the word with the lure.
Another method is clicker training. When your dog does something correctly, you press the clicker so it makes a clicking sound and then reward your dog with a treat. In this instance, you’re rewarding desired actions and through repetition, your dog starts understanding what’s being asked of it.
Being clear also means being specific about when you reward your dog. If you don’t immediately reward your dog after a positive response, it won’t know why it’s getting a treat or toy. Don’t ask your dog to do something unless you’re prepared to immediately reward him or her for doing something right so it associates that behavior with a positive response.
Consistency
Just as important as clarity, is consistency.
Correcting your dog only sometimes for jumping up on the couch is not going to teach your dog to stay off the furniture. We need to be just as consistent with our corrections for negative behaviors as we are with the positive reinforcement of good behaviors.
Consistency helps provide your dog with clarity.
Consistency increases the dog’s ability to learn, as well as the rate at which they learn.
If you are 100% consistent with the information you give your dog and with your responses to their actions, you’ll find that your dog will learn quicker than they would if you are inconsistent with corrections or rewards.
Calm
We must be a leader for our dogs so that they trust us, want to work with us, and look to us in times of decision-making. And if you think about some of the great leaders around the world, they are trusted and respected because they are always calm and collected, clear in communication, and consistent with their behaviors and actions.
This is how we want our dogs to view us!
Dogs feed off our emotions, so we should always approach training sessions, walks with our dogs, feeding times, etc. with a cool, calm, and collected demeanor. It helps them stay calm and build a trusting relationship.
Make Training Fun
Ultimately, dogs want to please. But if their human is constantly saying “no” without giving examples of why, yelling at them, and just generally displaying a frustrated attitude, the dog does not want to be around that person, let alone listen to them.
But if you make yourself fun, exciting, and happy to be around, your dog will listen to you and more clearly understand you.
Training doesn’t only mean “sit” and “stay”. There’s more to having a well-trained dog than that! And one of the best ways to teach a dog new tricks or work on its obedience is through games.
Dogs are much more engaged during a fun activity, and they probably don’t even realize it’s training. Here’s an example.
Try a game of “Go Find It” with your pup, which can also help you train the “leave it” command.
- Show your dog their favorite toy and let them sniff it.
- Have your dog sit and stay (or place them in their crate) while you hide the toy.
- Release your dog by saying “Go Find It!”
- When your pup finds their toy, celebrate by exclaiming in a happy, higher-pitched voice, “Good boy/girl! Good find it, [dog name]!”
- Call your dog to you and say “leave it”, and trade your dog the toy for a treat.
- Repeat several times (as long as your dog is still enjoying the game).
Just remember to keep training sessions short and try to end them before your dog gets bored with them.
Freedom is Earned
Until dogs understand what is ok to chew, where the proper bathroom is, and what they are allowed to lay on, they will do as they wish. It’s not that it’s ok for a dog to do what it wants whenever it pleases, just know that until you teach them otherwise, expect them to make their own decisions.
We have four dogs, and two of those had to be tethered to us with a leash at all times (or in a crate or indoor exercise pen (aka ex-pen) after bringing them home. They did not earn freedom in our house until they started exhibiting appropriate behaviors in the house.
Was this a pain? Absolutely!
Was it worth it in the long run? 100%
If a dog has been raised without structure and unlimited freedom, it’s a recipe for disaster. All of those negative behaviors pet parents get so frustrated with (like urinating in the house, destructive chewing, and jumping up on people) will quickly be on display.
When you have your dog on a leash, you have immediate access to correct a negative behavior. Say your dog jumps up on you. You can quickly and gently pull him or her back down while saying “no”. If your dog starts circling getting ready to have an accident in the house, you can immediately lead it outside instead and praise the pup when its correctly gone to the bathroom outside
Your dog will learn much quicker what is expected of it than if they were not tethered to you. Immediate corrections upon a negative behavior or praise after a good response are much more effective than if those were delayed. Then, the dog doesn’t understand why you’re rewarding or correcting.
I completely understand that having your dog on a leash with you when you’re home isn’t always possible. This is where an ex-pin comes in. If you need to cook dinner, ex-pins come in very handy! It’s a step above crates in terms of freedom but the dog is still contained. Be sure to give your dog something to keep it entertained like a Kong treat. If your dog tries to jump up on the ex-pin gate, gently pull your dog down and give it a distraction such as a chew toy. When dinner is done and dishes are washed, it’s time to put your pup back on a leash with you.
When you do start giving your dog more freedoms, this should be done slowly and not all at once. Occasionally let your dog off leash for a purpose – not just to roam. Work on obedience commands like sit or stay, reward good behavior, and then leash your dog again after this quick 5-minute training session.
Eventually, you’ll want to let your dog free to roam the room you’re in while keeping a close eye on the pup. After 2 or 3 minutes, excitedly call your dog back to you, offer him or her a treat, and then leash your pup again. Repeat this several times throughout the day.
If the dog regresses, put him or her back on a leash so you can immediately correct the wrong behaviors again and reward the positive ones.
When we first bring a dog home, we should make every single one of its decisions – until they learn the correct behaviors to be able to make their own. Depending on the dog, this could take a couple of weeks or a couple of months.
Additional Dog Training Hacks
I hope these 5 training hacks help you and your pup have an improved daily life together and make your training sessions more stress-free. Personally, they have helped us make leaps and bounds with our dogs’ obedience, training new tricks, and simply improving our quality of life together.
Dogs are the best! But they need guidance from us. And what better way to be an effective leader to them than with 10 additional training hacks that have completely changed the way we approach dog training. Implementing these professional dog training hacks has been truly life-changing for us and our dogs.
Conclusion
By adjusting our approach to dog training, our dogs are likely to make progress much quicker than they would without us applying these training hacks, and training will be more enjoyable for everyone.
Which of these tips will you implement with your dog first? Please share details in the comments section!