dog training part 1

I recently checked out Dog Friendly Dog Training by Andrea Arden at the local library. I wanted to harness my full grown dogs energy and turn it into something useful for both of us. He is, by nature, a dog that wants to please and he seems to have taken to his training really well.

The gist of this book is to reward good behavior not punish bad behavior. So we started with sit. The idea is to have treats ready and when the dog inadvertently does the behavior you want then you reward him. So after a few minutes Preston got bored and sat. He gets a treat followed by a 'yes' voiced response. I step away and he gets up to do the process again. We worked through the handful of treats I had in short order.

The next day I started to add a voice command of 'sit.' Now he sits on command. The day following I started to make him wait for his treat until I give the 'okay' verbal release.

I am probably going a bit fast and will grow to regret it but he was sitting on command, to some extent, before I started this training regimen. But now, and this is the kicker, he sits on command and I can walk away and then give him the 'okay' release and he comes running.

I think as I do this I'm going to write down kind of a recipe book for this process. For me it is easier to follow a list of instructions and then gather the meaning behind the instructions later. Let me know what you think in the comments below...