How to Make Dog Training a Habit

Despite the hope of all of us, there are very few quick fixes in life. If you want to lose weight, most fad diets won’t help you long term. If you want to save money for the future, there’s very little possibility of that happening overnight. If you want a well trained dog, you need to forget the notion of magic words and create good habits. Truly, making a change in your life is all about the reconfiguration of your habits. The power of habit is strong and with it, we can make immense changes to just about anything in life. The same is true of dog training. There is no magical solution. The person with the well trained dog who listens got there because they created habits to make sure the dog did. Creating good habits with your dog is a key component to getting to the point where you can call them well-trained.

So how do you make habit part of dog training? Glad you asked! Dogs definitely thrive on habit and consistency when it comes to rules. For example, if they know that eating their dinner is only an option once they are seated patiently and then released, they will have good manners at the food bowl. If your habit at mealtime is just to get the food down for the dog and your dog’s habit is to get to the food as quickly as possible, you’re likely to have an ill-behaved dog when it comes time for feeding.