The following tips have been collected from various sources over the years. Many have been adapted from horse training but apply with dogs as well since both are pack animals.

1. Never let your emotions get in the way!
   • You are smarter than the animal and have the tools to deal with this behavior. If you get frustrated, mad or sad the animal WILL know. Animals don’t have language so they focus on energy and body language. They know when you are upset and will feed off of negative emotions.
2. Never stop training until you have gotten the result you wanted.
   • If you are telling your dog to lay down and he won’t you can NOT give up without him laying down. This means you will always be ending on a positive note. This will reinforce the positive behavior. Stopping training is what the animal naturally wants to do, so the reward for good behavior is ending the training session.
3. Going along with the previous tip- if you are teaching a new trick and the animal gets it- quit while you are ahead.
   • If you have only been training for 5 minutes then you will have to stop there. You can try it again later in the day or the next day.

     The animal needs to know that he is doing the correct thing and by praising him and quitting the training session he will better understand. If you repeat a new trick over and over again while the animal is getting it, the animal might get confused and think you are trying to tell him something else.

     In horse training this is especially true since sometimes you give the horse a cue and he doesn’t know what you want exactly. He tries responding in different ways until you tell him he was good by praise and ending the session. If you don’t communicate what you want the animal will not be able to interpret what you want.

     You also don’t want training sessions to be long because the animal may get overwhelmed and not absorb what you want him to. He needs time to process everything and if you keep bombarding him with commands he will not absorb anything.

4. You are the boss—never let the animal come into your space uninvited.
   • This is more important for a horse (because they can hurt you), but it can apply to dogs too.

     A dog should never jump up on you uninvited, this behavior just reinforces the fact that they are the boss of you because they are deciding how they want to interact with you instead of visa versa. I believe this may apply to other dog behaviors especially when the dog doesn’t understand his place in the relationship—like when you sit down and the dog makes a bee-line for your lap.

     You didn’t invite him there—it’s not on your terms, it’s on the dog’s terms.

5. When you are working with a difficult animal, don’t let them get away with anything.
• You are trying to establish yourself as the leader. It sucks having to be so strict, but down the road when the animal has your respect you can let the little things go.