Teaching obedience commands is a great way to improve your relationship with your dog.

Obedience will teach your dog focus and self-restraint while making him better behaved.  Obedience is also a great way to stimulate your dog mentally.

The command gives your dog something to think about rather than a previously typical knee-jerk reaction.  They understand that sit means to sit quietly, and heel means be attentive to their handler.  Using commands as tools can help a dog focus in situations that were previously tough for him.  Through distraction training, dogs learned self-control and confidence.  “Self-control,” meaning he can control his actions on his own.  Confidence is the result, and then he feels less of a need to bark or act out.  A lack of confidence and self-control in dogs tends to develop into a variety of unwanted behaviors.  So it is important to make obedience a way of life.

With practice and consistency at home, you should be able to help your dog become a much better member of society.

The use of standard cue words is a basic tool used to get desired behavior from a dog.  The following are the standard cue words used at Acme Canine; in addition, we use to suggest an owner’s release word, crate word, and elimination command:

1. Off – the dog needs 4 feet on the ground.
2. Leave it – the dog needs to get away from item or dog (litter, poop, urine, etc.)
3. Wait – the dog is to stop moving forward
4. Quiet – dog is to stop barking
5. Back – the dog is to back up so another dog can go through the door
6. No – the dog is to stop what it is doing and focus on us

Keeping Cues Strong

• To avoid teaching the dog to ignore us, it is most successful to use each cue word only once and enforce the cue given.
• Use verbal praise and brief pats to reward dogs for proper responses to cues.
• Praise the dog when they respond to your cue.  Remain patient and be consistent.

Have you and your dog already had obedience lessons? 

Try taking him off-leash!  Teaching off-leash obedience is a very challenging yet rewarding way to spend time with your dog.  Interested, but not sure how to do this?  Acme Canine can help you out!

Let’s talk dogs, or even better, let’s learn about dogs.  Set aside some time to receive Spike’s dog blogs by Acme Canine.