Common Training Mistakes

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about common training mistakes. These issues come up time and time again and can make it seem like the training is ‘not working’, which is frustrating for owners and dogs. Fortunately, most of these common training mistakes are easy to fix and a few little tweaks can get you back onto the path of successful training with your dog in no time. Next time you’re working on a skill with your dog and it’s not going the way you planned, keep these in mind!

Body language

Understanding our dog’s body language is vital to having not only success in training, but in all aspects of having a great relationship with our dogs. I work with dogs who pull on the lead a lot. Some dogs just haven’t had enough training and we’ll talk about this below. But often, dogs just don’t feel safe and therefore cannot focus on loose lead walking. This could be because they’re being walked on a busy road and they’re fearful of the traffic. It could be because there’s a number of other dogs around and they’re anxious about them. They could be getting stressed out by background noise, like sirens. Our dogs need to feel safe to be able to learn and practise new skills. You want to see relaxed, loose and happy body language when training. Have a read of our blog post on body language here to learn more about what that looks like. 

Timing

Another common training mistake is poor timing. For your training to be effective, your dog needs to know what they’ve done right that they’re going to be rewarded for exactly when it happens. If you ask your puppy to go pee in the garden and then go inside and give them a treat once you’re both back inside, you haven’t rewarded peeing in the garden. You’ve rewarded them for coming back inside with you. Which is fine, but it’s not going to help your toilet training! This is why using a clicker or marker word is so helpful. You can learn more about how to teach your dog a marker word here. You really need to mark/click and reward the behaviour when it’s happening. So, you’d bring your treats outside with you. As your puppy is finishing their business, you can click or say your marker word and then immediately give them a treat.

Common training mistakes- Not rewarding enough

My clients are often surprised by how often I reward their dog when we’re training a new behaviour. We want your dog to be super motivated when training. One way we can do that is by using food. Whilst some dogs are more food motivated than others, all dogs are food motivated to a certain extent. Otherwise they would starve. I would strongly encourage you to be generous with your food rewards when training and don’t be tempted to phase out rewards too soon. We want to build a strong history of being rewarded for a behaviour before we ask them to do it for ‘free’. This often takes a lot longer than people expect- think months, rather than days. The more you reward the behaviour you’re looking for, the stronger that behaviour will become. 
If you’re worried about overfeeding your dog, simply reduce the amount you feed them at mealtimes. You can also consider ditching the bowl completely and using all your dogs daily calorie allowance in training and enrichment. We do a mix of meals and using food for training with Duke.

Adding in distractions too soon 

Another common training mistake I see is attempting to add in distractions too soon. This often happens with recall. Consider recalling your dog at home as level 1. Recalling your dog in a busy park full of smells, other dogs, people etc is level 50. They are very unlikely to be able to listen to you calling if they’ve had no practise recalling at any level between 1 and 50. We have to build on skills in a slow, systematic way to be successful. So you want to practise in your garden, where there are more distractions than inside but less than at the park. Then maybe in a field or quiet park. You are much more likely to have long term success with your training if you take this approach. The same also goes for adding distance and duration into your training.

Poisoning and over repeating cue’s

Lastly, poisoning and over repeating cue’s is a common issue. A poisoned cue refers to when your dog has learnt that you asking them to do something means something unpleasant is going to happen for them, so they learn to avoid doing the cue. For example, if your dog learns that ‘Charlie, come!’ always means you’re going to put their lead on and end the walk, they will stop coming back to you. Their recall cue has become poisoned. To avoid this, practise recalling your dog throughout their walk, rewarding them and then releasing them back out to play again. If you think some of your other cue’s may have become poisoned, have a think about what happens when you use that cue and what your dog may be avoiding. 

Similarly, over repeating cue’s is a common training mistake. I regularly see people shouting ‘heel! Heel! Heel!’ to their dog, as the dog continues to drag them down the street. Chances are, the dog has no idea what they’re being asked to do and is therefore ignoring their owner because that word has become meaningless. If you cue your dog to do something and they don’t, give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t hear you or were distracted. Give it a second or so and say the cue again. If they don’t do it the second time, don’t bother trying a third time. They either don’t know what you’re asking of them or they don’t feel comfortable doing it. Asking them to do it again is likely to just lead to stress and frustration for both of you. It probably means you need to examine their body language more closely or think about whether they’ve had enough training given the environment and level of distractions.

What next?

• Looking for one to one dog training? Contact us to arrange in person or online training.
• Read more blog posts here.
• Perfect Recall: Teaching your dog to come back when called every time. Our guide is free to download when you join our email list- sign up here.