Blog: Dog Training 101

Dogs can be very well behaved if you maintain the proper relationship and establish it at an early age. It's important to remember loving your dog must be balanced with proper discipline.

Walking - Don’t let your dog walk ahead of you. If he is ahead of you on a walk, he will walk all over you in all other areas of your relationship!

Loose Leash - Always walk your dog on a loose leash. Tension on a leash can cause frustration which may be taken out on other dogs or moving objects.

Supervise - Supervise your dog at all times. You must be a witness to a problem in order to correct it and prevent it from reoccurring.

A Tired Dog is a Good Dog - Fulfill your dog’s needs both mentally and physically. A 15 - 20 minute run, twice a day will serve your dogs’ physical needs. Thirty minutes of obedience training will have a therapeutically profound effect on your dog and will serve your dogs’ mental needs.

Attention - You can’t teach a dog if you do not have his attention. Get his attention first before you give a command.

Reinforcement - Never give a command that you can’t reinforce.

Mom Says ONCE! - Give a command once, then correct if the dog does not obey. If you repeat a command more than once, you will teach your dog that the command has no meaning.

Jobs - If you don’t give your dog a job to perform at, he will eventually find one himself and you won’t like what he chooses!

Calm and Assertive - Do not yell and scream at your dog when he is behaving badly.

Down Stay - Do a 30 minute down stay, twice a day. This will reinforce your role as the Alpha leader.

Arriving Guests - Before your guests arrive, crate your dog or put him in “place.” No one enjoys being greeted by an out of control dog!

Eating and Entering Passageways - Eat and enter all passageways before your dog does. Alpha’s always eat first and enter all areas first.

Attachment - Don’t let your dog follow you around like a laser guided missile. This behavior can lead to separation anxiety.

Love and Discipline - Always balance love with discipline and structure. If love was all that was needed, my business would not be thriving!

Tonality - Tone of voice is extremely important. A high pitch tone is a sign of approval and a low tone is a sign of disapproval. Your dog will clearly understand this.

Praise - Praise your dog for doing something right. Praise does not always mean you have to shower your dog with affection. It simply means you need to say “Good boy / girl” in a high pitch tone of voice.

Elevating Status - Don’t allow your dog on the furniture or on your bed. If you allow your dog to be on the same level as you, you are elevating his status and lowering yours. This is clearly not the way to establish yourself as the Alpha Leader.

Ignoring Problems - Ignoring problem behavior will not make it go away.  Ignoring is condoning and condoning is approval in your dogs’ mind.

Corrections - Correcting your dog must have meaning. If your correction is not strong enough it won’t have meaning for your dog. If it doesn’t have meaning, there is no motivation for your dog to stop the bad behavior.

Behaving Badly - Dogs behave badly because they know they can and they don’t understand it is wrong.

Vladae Roytapel is the Russian Dog Wizard from SoCal Dog Training in Newport Beach. He has been featured on the David Letterman Show, CNN, Fox and more major news outlets. He can be reached at 949-274-3445 or via email at socaldogtraining@gmail.com. To learn more tips and secrets from the Russian Dog Wizard, visit www.socaldogtraining.com