My dog is difficult to train – isn’t dog behavior about obeying the owner?

Linda has difficulty in understanding this complaint from dog owners.

Since when was training a wild animal supposed to be easy? How difficult are we talking? Did the owner get a rescue dog or a breed notoriously independent of training.

Is the dog a powerful fighting breed dog?

Do you own a working dog that you don’t have working and you don’t tire out by off lead walking each day.

Yes there are many other questions that should go along with this basic complaint, but I imagine even dog trainers who are paid a handsome sum of money to do minor works with most dogs would complain from time to time about dogs not being easy to train – probably why they are paid so much money?

Easy basic obedience V dog behaviour

With any dog, when you get them, you want them not to bite things (humans and furniture) be social with all other animals and have the basics of recall.

If you have a dog that does these things, then all other training really is a ‘nice to have’.

I am not dismissing the value of having a dog sit, stay and roll over, but a lot of people don’t put a lot of effort into their dogs, nor do they understand basic dog training techniques and expect miracles out of their dogs, like their dogs can speak human and do better than the owner’s children at obeying commands.

I don’t want to over simplify things, but time and time again, I see owners expecting way too much from their dogs, when they themselves don’t have a clue about how to train a dog.

Knowing which positive reinforcement technique works, and when to apply it and having consistency among family members is always the key to good dog training

Basic dog behaviour understanding is very important too. If you can understand a dog’s motivations, basic food desires and desires to be with a dog pack and allow those, then you are going to have much better chances of training your dog.

This is not a dog training site

IF it was, then all the articles world probably address details about training your dog.

If you can’t train a dog yourself, there are plenty of books and volunteer organisation around where mostly your time and putting techniques into practice are required.

Don’t be hard on yourself or your dog, its all a learning curve, and some owners or dogs are just a little further along. But dedication to training and consistency (be affectionate after training) go a long way.

Make training fun and your dog is far more likely to listen. Fun does not mean being lenient or not trying to get the dog to do something that they have difficulty with, they all have different speeds of learning.