Puppy Training Through Positive Reinforcement

TLC Pet Food shares the importance of training a puppy through positive reinforcement and how best to incorporate it into your training.

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Positive reinforcement training methods are one of the most rewarding training methods for both you and your puppy. Your puppy will do what you ask of them, and in exchange, you get to reward them. You can reward them with their favorite treat, affection, or game, which will always make them happy. An actual win-win situation!

TLC’s Whole Life Health Biscuits are ideal for training purposes due to their ability to break into smaller pieces. When you are training your puppy with a positive reinforcement method, you reward your puppy with what they like almost as much as your affection – treats!

Training through positive reinforcement:

Positive reinforcement can be used to complete many different types of training tasks. Teaching your dog how to sit, lie down, shake a paw, and many more useful commands can all be taught using positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement training can also prevent bad behavior. This includes jumping on people, running out the front door whenever it’s opened (also known as door-darting), and begging for food.

The more simple commands such as “sit,” “come,” “stay,” “heel,” etc., are all relatively straightforward to teach. They are still going to require persistence and consistency. Make sure if multiple people are training your puppy, they are all using the exact words to get action out of your puppy. For example, if one person is trying to get your puppy to stay in the same sitting position, one person using the word “stay” and one saying “Woah” will conflict with each other. This is going to confuse the puppy. Persistence and patience are two virtues that will help you in the training process. Don’t give up! Some breeds are, by nature, harder to train than others.

Using a clicker in conjunction with giving your puppy a treat can also help. Use the clicker to signal or mark the good behavior and use it every time they do what you wish. The goal of using the clicker is to get them to associate the clicker’s sound with both good behaviors.

Training Tip

Timing is also very important with positive reinforcement training. When trying to teach your puppy to sit, reward them with a treat or affection immediately upon sitting (within a few seconds), not when they stand up, as they will think that the motion of standing is what you want.

Tricks

Positive reinforcement training can also be used as a tiered training method for teaching more difficult tasks. For example, the act of “shaking a paw” requires more than one step. The dog must lift their leg, hold it out, wait for you to grab his paw, then put his leg back down to the ground once the shake is done. If your dog cannot get the trick in one motion, try rewarding your puppy at each step. Give them a small piece of the treat until they put it all together. Use this tiered method for other tricks like “rollover” and commands that require more than one step.