Dog - Motivation, Consistency And Reinforcement In Dog Training

In this article i will discuss the three primary aspects of training a dog. These three aspects are motivation, reinforcement and constancy. When these three principles are followed your dog will be working confident, happy and a tentative.

When begging to teach your remember the most important things are consistency, rate of reinforcement and motivation. Consistency would be always giving the dog the same signals dogs love consistency and it will make stress levels go right down and produce far quicker results. The rate of reinforcement is how often the dog is rewarded when starting to teach a new behavior the rate of reinforcement should be very high. The rate of reinforcement should gradually come down as the dog begins to learn the behavior until the rate of reinforcement is very low. A high rate of reinforcement will also encourage faster behaviors thought motivation. One of the biggest aspects to any dog training whether it be obedience, agility, fly ball or just general behavior obedience the most important thing is the dogs motivation. The dog must love to do what you’re asking of it when this is the case the dog will work fast and highly accurate. A dog that has little or no motivation to work will be very slow and de-motivated making any training extremely difficult. Forced behavior which is where a dog is forced into the behavior will often produce a de-motivated dog in cases where dogs have been forced into behaviors the best thing to do is simply start from scratch with very high levels of reinforcement.

Reinforces to use:

Toys are the number one way to train dogs they produce highly motivated and highly obedient dog. When dogs love there reward and associate it with fast exciting situations then dogs will always work well. Games of tug etc are always a great way of producing high drive energy thats so sort after in so many dog sports including agility, flyball, working trials and many others.

Food is also a motivator often used I personally would always avoid using food for training as it produces a dog that becomes dependent of constantly being fed.

Clickers are a way of reinforcing a dog’s behavior with a simple click rather than the reward itself. This is a good way to train as it produces very quick results. The dog is being reinforced down to the millisecond getting through to the dog exactly whets excepted using a consistent click at the same consistent point when the desirable behavior is shown. The other advantage of training with a clicker is it removes many stages associated with baiting a dog etc. These stages include the gradual moving away from the dog so its producing the behavior on its own. Where as with a clicker you are starting away from the dog.

Motivation, consistence and the rate of reinforcement are three huge factors in training any dog. I hope through reading this guide you have learned how to train your dog more efficiently while producing a happier dog.

Using these three principles your dog will become fast at learning fast in producing the behavior, happy and overall confident in training. Remember training should always be fun for both the dog and owner. If a dogs happy its motivated if its motivated it will always work well.