“It’s just going to cause stress or anxiety and that can develop into worse things down the line.” “Don’t overreact or take it out on them,” said Dowling. The worst thing you can do is to lose your cool or take a bad day out on your dog, explained Dowling, which is why patience is so important. “When you leave the training session, make sure you end on a totally positive note.”ĭowling explained that you should “never ever end on a negative note,” because it undermines the work you’ve been doing with your dog, and could cause him or her to be become anxious or confused. You also need to end the training session the way you started, on a good note. “To keep it positive, you find out what your dog likes as a reward, whether it’s a kong or a toy,” said Dowling, who adds that he would discourage food, because if you run out of treats, not only are you not rewarding good behavior, you’re not being consistent. One of the ways to keep it light, is to find out what your dog wants. “Then you slowly and gradually bring them into the training.” “You enter the area in a really lighthearted way and let them run around and be a dog,” said Dowling. When you enter the training area, you should start off by letting your dog run around and play, you know, be a dog. “When you go there every day, or every other day the dog is going to understand that in that area, it’s time to train,” said Dowling, but adds that it can’t feel like a chore for your dog, he or she has to enjoy it. Once you’ve found the right spot, you need to return there so your dog comes to understand that this is where you go to train. Whether it’s in a park, or some place where you know you’re going to have limited distractions. “You want to bring them into an environment where it can be just you and your dog.

“You don’t want to train your dog in your living room, or a public crowded place,” said Dowling. You need to do three things when training your dog, explained Dowling: Be consistent, positive, and patient.įirst, you need to find the right place to start training.

While it’s one thing to understand the importance of obedience in training, it’s another thing to put into practice. “Dogs, like human beings, are continuously learning.” “Every dog can learn no matter what age,” said Dowling. If your dog is getting on in years or came to you with a number of bad habits, and you’re worried they’re too ingrained, Dowling insists that the adage “old dogs can’t learn new tricks,” is just that, old and out of date. “It’s really just dependent on you and your dog.”

“It starts when you feel the dog trusts you, and you have a good enough rapport and strong enough bond that they will listen to you, and there’s really no timeframe for it,” said Dowling. In a human to dog relationship you're the alpha, and that’s important because they rely on you for protection and guidance.”Īdditionally, Dowling explained that there’s no set timeline for training your dog. “In a human to human relationship they’re equals. “Everything spawns from obedience, because if they won’t sit when you tell them to sit or heel when you to tell them to heel, they won’t do anything else,” said Dowling. “You immediately want to build trust with your dog and be positive with them,” said Dowling, who added that a strong bond between a dog and its owner or handler is an essential pillar in training. Related: 10 photos that prove the military wouldn’t be the same without its working dogs.ĭowling explained that training actually starts the moment you meet your dog. Dowling also does work with Hounds and Heroes, a nonprofit that provides service dogs to military veterans, and is the author of “Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond Between a Marine and His Military Working Dog.” While training your dog can sound daunting, and after trying to convince my own dog that my bed is not in fact, her bed, or that squirrels are not plush chew toys she should eat, I realize that it’s also sometimes frustrating.įor some dog training tips, Task & Purpose reached out to Mike Dowling, a Marine veteran of the Iraq War, and a former military working dog handler.

Military hand signals for dogs