Training you dog is a priority to have a successful relationship with him
What are the things and exercises that you should be doing every single day with your dog to guarantee success, to have the dream life with your dream canine companion?
So the first thing that you must get your head around is the importance of threshold manners.
And by thresholds, what we mean is any entrance or exit that takes your dog from one environment through to the next. That could be their crate, out of their crate. It could be the room into the crate. It could be every single door way in your house, in particular, the ones that take them to the outside. It could be gates while you’re out on your walk. Anything that is an entrance or an exit that takes your dog from one area to the next, you should be managing with what we call threshold management. What that should look like is that when you come to a threshold, your dog is happy to ideally sit, stay and wait, or at least come to a stop, look up to you for guidance and direction, and you go through that threshold first, welcoming them with you in a calm, relaxed state of mind.
If you just do that, you will be setting yourself up for huge amounts of success. Amounts of success that you wouldn’t believe were fathomable from something that you might think is unimportant or trivial, but from the thousands of people and dogs that I’ve helped, I guarantee that this is one of the things that will make the biggest impact for you and your dog’s life. Manage their environment, manage the threshold between environments, and do so from a place of calm, consistent leadership.
The next training tips and exercises I want to talk about is my food drill.
Now, when you get a new dog coming to your home, there’s a couple of ways you can approach it. The way I’m approaching it with my mate here is that all of his food, every single drop of his food for the day, goes into his treat pouch in the morning. Now, I use this food throughout the day for all of his training sessions, and anytime he’s simply doing something that I like, like right now, he’s sitting, being really calm, well-mannered, and I’m going to let him know, I appreciate that, good job, and I’m going to find as many opportunities as I can throughout the day to let him know, hey, I really like what you’re doing, and I’m going to reward you for doing so. However, at the end of the day, any food that’s left then goes into his food bowl, and he can eat it like a traditional meal. Sometimes there isn’t any left, but once the dog is settled and become an excellent canine companion, you don’t have to do this every day. Maybe you just want to feed your dog two regular meals because you’ve got them to a place that you’re happy with. That’s brilliant, but never leave your dog’s food down, ever, period, for the rest of their life. Use it as an opportunity to every single day build relationship, built on your loving leadership. To do that, you fill the dog’s bowl up, you put them into a sit-and-stay, you put the food on the floor, and you do not allow them to have that food until they’re sat, looking up to you for guidance and direction.
When they’re doing that, and they’re being calm and respectful, looking up to you for loving guidance and direction, you can simply then utilise break, and they can have access to their food. You can do that in the crate, you can do it in the kitchen, it doesn’t really matter, but what is important is that food for a dog is usually the highest value resource in their life. If you guard the gateway to them accessing food through either working with you, or through a simple drill, a sit-stay break, you are going to help your dog understand that the best thing in their life comes from you, and it comes through you. And for them to gain access to it, they simply need to be calm, well-mannered, look up to you for guidance and direction, and they can have it. Do that every day, and you’ll be setting you and your dog up for wild amounts of success.
| We recommend this excellent training treats from Crumps A mini trainer madd with beef and natural ingredients And only 3 kcal per treat Buy it on AMAZON |  |
The next thing I think you should be doing every single day with your dog, especially if you’ve just brought that dog into your home, is crate training.
I truly, to my core, believe that every single dog on the planet should be at least crate trained. Once they’re crate trained, you can then make the decision to slowly give them more freedom, providing that they don’t start becoming reactive, anxious, or destroying your furniture or property. If they do do any of those things, you can quickly bring them back into their crate.
They’re happy to be in their crate. Their crate is a safe place where they understand that they can settle, decompress, relax, and be happy. Provide that for your dog, and you will have a happier dog, and you will have a better behaved dog, simply by controlling their environment and giving them a safe space to decompress.
And the next thing is exercise.
Your dog has physical and mental exercise requirements. All dogs are different, but it doesn’t change the fact that all dogs need to have those requirements for physical and mental exercise provided for them every single day. If you do that for your dog, tire your dog out, you will have a happier dog. A tired dog is also a more well-behaved dog. A tired dog is easier to train in most situations. A tired dog is easier to socialize in most situations. A tired dog is easier to teach things like manners, rules, boundaries, and expectations in most situations. And a tired dog will definitely settle down much easier in your home than a dog that hasn’t had those needs met. So make sure that every single day you’re giving your dog plenty of mental and physical exercise.
And the last thing that you should be doing with your dog every day is obedience training.
Yes, I’m a huge advocate for loving leadership, and I really enjoy very natural ways of living, communicating, and building relationship with dogs. But that does not mean that you shouldn’t be working on your communication pathways with your dog every single day. In my opinion, to have a perfect canine companion that’s safe and under control at all times, your dog should have a sit, it should have a stay, break, heel, recall, and place. If you can do that with your dog, you can have a wonderful dog no matter where you are. Even if you’ve got a dog like my mate here who’s completely deaf. We can build those commands with hand signals to help him understand what it is that I want from him. And when he makes good decisions, I reward him for making those good decisions. And it allows us to build relationship where he can trust me because he understands I’m going to communicate to him effectively and from a place of love. Not only what I do want, but also what I don’t want.
We make it crystal clear, no grey areas, and he’s a happier dog because of it. Because he has no anxiety, and he has no fear around what he should do and when. In any given situation, he knows he simply needs to look up to me for guidance and direction, and with those fundamental basics of obedience, I can ask him what it is that I want from him and keep him safe, reliable, and under control at all times.
So they’re the things I think you should absolutely be doing with your dog every single day if you want your dog to be a well-behaved, well-rounded, perfect canine companion.
