Dog Trainer Wishes

 We hit 800 followers!

So here are 8 whimsical truths every dog trainer wishes dog owners magically knew; preferably delivered by a dog with a big heart! 

8 Things Every Dog Trainer Wishes Owners Knew

1. Your dog isn’t being “stubborn,” they’re being dog.

Most dogs aren’t plotting mutiny. They’re just trying to make sense of our human weirdness. Clear communication beats frustration every time. The behaviors that we often label as "stubborn" such as staying laid down when we beg them to come our way or trying to rush ahead of us instead of walk nicely, are generally driven by natural dog behavior. Behavior happens based on what has been reinforced in the past mixed with what is going on in the moment. If they are comfortably chilling and the bed and we call them, it's only natural that they would question "why!" If your boss called you on a day off and asked you to come into work, you'd want to know why before heading in. 

2. Reinforcement isn’t bribery; it’s how all living beings learn.

If treats were cheating, every teacher with gold stars would be in jail. Rewards simply say: “Yep, THAT! Do that again!” If we naturally love the job we are being asked to do, we need a very small reward to do that job. However if we hat the job we are being asked to do, we need to be paid big or will not likely do that job again. Reinforcement involves both intrinsic (something that makes us feel good) and extrinsic (something that is added to make us feel better) rewards for a behavior or job we just did. Both humans and dogs learn best when they love what they are being asked to do! Sometimes there may be a fear or hesitation to do a certain job, perhaps we are not sure we know how to do that job, and that is exactly where a reward is best placed to build value for the work that is being done. Dogs, humans, and all animals learn best when there is a reward!

3. Sniffing is not optional. It’s the dog version of checking email.

Letting your dog sniff on walks is enrichment, empowerment, and decompression rolled into one wagging package. Humans are more visual and often enjoy watching...TV, funny dog reels, anything entertaining. However dogs are more scent driven and enjoy sniffing a wide variety of scents every day. We don't have to let them sniff everything! But making sure they have time in each day to do this very natural dog behavior is important for quality of life and mental health!

4. Training happens in tiny moments, not dramatic movie montages.

Consistency beats heroics. Five good minutes a day is magic! The best training happens in your house when you need a specific behavior in order to be successful in accomplishing a job together. Teaching the dog good manners at the door, at dinner time, and other big moments in the day can be taught in small bursts throughout the day. A young puppy needs to go out to potty frequently; this is the perfect time to teach a door manners routine that will lead to the behavior you want your adult dog to do at the door. Dogs thrive on routine, some more than others. Teaching dogs to have manners happens in tiny moments, yet we often forget that when we start training formal obedience such as heel or stay, suddenly wanting to do long training sessions that are hard for the dog. While you can build up to longer training sessions to practice known behaviors, it's best to teach new behaviors in short, 1-3 minutes bursts of time.

5. Overexcited brains can’t learn, no matter how loudly you ask.

If your dog looks like a confetti cannon about to explode, they need calm, not commands. This is why so many dogs struggle with greeting people or other dogs; they are so excited with the idea of greeting that they simple can't do the calm behaviors we are asking for.  The solution involves helping the dog calm down before the greeting so that they can remember the manners we are training. This is where management comes into play while the dog is learning to control themselves. Crates, gates, and leashes can be used to prevent the dog from rushing into a greeting and often self reinforcing moment. This is why we use leashes out on walks and in group classes! Leashes prevent our over-excited dogs from rushing to interact with everyone while we pull out all our focus games to help our dog calm down and choose us over the distraction. Only once we have calm can we allow greetings or train new behaviors.

6. Socialization isn’t “go greet every creature in a 3-mile radius.”

Quality beats quantity. Calm exposure > chaotic interactions. Think peaceful museum tour, not mall on Black Friday. Most dog owners focus on socialization during the puppy stage getting as many people to pet the puppy as possible and finding as many dogs to play with our dogs as possible. However this often sets the puppy up to fail as not all people or other dogs interact appropriately with the young pup. Some people might be too excited to pet the puppy, therefore raising the pup's excitement during the greeting that will carry over to future greetings. Some dogs might correct a pup for rude behavior, but many dogs will over-correct often causing the pup to be fearful of dogs. It's mega important to choose the right people and dogs for our puppies to interact with. And on the flip side, it's mega important to teach our puppies that they don't get to greet every person or dog they see and that ignoring strangers has value too.

7. Management is not failure; it’s strategy.

Baby gates, pens, leashes, and closed doors aren’t signs you “lost.” They’re signs you’re smart enough to prevent chaos before it erupts. Often when I suggest that a dog owner puts up a baby gate to stop the puppy from running out the front door, I get the response that the owner doesn't want to live like that and would rather just train the dog to stay away from the door. However it's not always management OR training and most generally it will involve both management AND training. Sometimes it easier to use management for the lifetime of the dog than work hours, weeks, months on training. That's totally OK if the choice is to use long-term management. Often the management is only needed during the training stage, then can be phased out once the dog understands the behavior you want.

8. Relationship always comes before obedience.

Trust, connection, and teamwork are the real superpowers. Tricks are just the sparkles on top. This is huge! This is how all of the Yooper Paws group classes and private sessions work. Each lesson is founded on teamwork, communication, and cooperation with the new behaviors being taught within the teamwork framework.  This doesn't slow down training at all! Teamwork actually speeds up training in the fact that we create a dog that wants to be with their human and do all the cool things WITH their human.

We hope you enjoyed this list!

If you don't follow us on social media, you're missing out on lots of great training tips, fun social interactions among dog owners, and learning how to understand your dog better. We try our best to make our social media accounts positive, and uplifting for dog owners vs some of the hate and discontent that is commonly found on social media. 

Here are the great ways to follow us:

YooperPaws FB page: https://www.facebook.com/YooperPawsOfLove/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ypoflove/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@yooperpawsoflove

Patreon: patreon.com/YooperPawsofLove

Bio-Site: bio.site/YooperPaws

For simple social content, our Facebook and Instagram accounts are basically mirrored so you can choose which one is best for you. Facebook allows you to share pictures of your dog in the comments, but Instagram does not, therefore we interact more with fun games on Facebook.

YouTube is the best place to see un-edited training videos. All our raw footage of training sessions with my personal dogs and many of our clients is posted here. Also all the videos from our great e-books are hosted on You-Tube.

Patreon is where all our online classes take place, but there is also more in-depth training available to both free and paid memberships. This is where I often create training around the most common issues I'm seeing that month or create training that is more advanced for working dogs.

Bio-Site is new, but also the best place to see our monthly projects and sales. This month we have info on the Creating a Calm Christmas series & the Fresh Start to Dog Training Workshop available. Bio-site allow us to keep one consistent link for you to find, that gives you access to our projects that are always changing. This is great if your favorite social media platform is Instagram as we can't put a link in a reel, but you can always find the bi0-site link in our Instagram profile.

If you need help finding the right social media platform that meets your needs we are happy to help!

Also if you'd like to help us grow, please take a moment to visit the platform of your choice and like 3 posts, comment on 2 posts, and share 1 post to your feed. Our goal is to grow our social media content to over 1,000 people following us on Facebook & Instagram

Thank you for supporting Yooper Paws and helping us grow!