20/01/2024
I learned something super-interesting from the free workshop conducted by the K9 Training Institute (a website that helps regular dog owners have dogs that are as well-behaved as service dogs).
Did you know that there’s a major difference between the way service dogs are trained, and the way regular dogs are trained?
Regular dogs are usually trained mainly using verbal cues or commands.
Unfortunately, the science of animal behavior tells us that this is the wrong way to train dogs.
Why?
That’s because when dogs communicate with each other, they primarily use body language. They only use vocalization to make their body language more dramatic.
So if we want to communicate with our dogs, we need to communicate with them using language THEY understand.
And the language they understand is body language.
That’s exactly why service dog trainers train dogs mainly using body language.
Now, this doesn’t mean that service dog trainers never use verbal cues. What I mean is that service dog trainers always start a dog’s training using body language.
Later on, they use a verbal cue to reinforce the dog’s training. But the verbal cue is only brought in much later after the dog has already been trained initially using body language.
Because this is just the way dogs naturally communicate with each other.
Now, let’s talk about how to teach your dog to come whenever they are called using this technique.
As you will see when you sign up to watch this free online dog training workshop from the K9 Training Institute, getting your dog to come when called becomes easy when you follow the principle of first training using body language and only then adding the verbal “COME” cue.
All that you need to do is to first train your dog to come to you by making a rapid, sweeping movement with one of your arms.
Even though dogs don’t see well at a distance, their eyes are very good at picking up fast movements at a distance.
So making a rapid, sweeping movement always gets their attention.
And then, only after your dog consistently comes to you when you make the sweeping movement should you introduce the verbal “COME” cue.
Obviously, there’s a lot more involved in training the COME cue (I recommend signing up for their free workshop), but this should help you get started.
And eventually, once your dog is fully trained, you won’t even need to make the sweeping movement with your arms - your dog will always come to you as soon as you say “COME”.
But the only reason they will eventually come to you every time you give the verbal cue “COME” is because of all the training involving body language that you had done earlier.
Now, what if you have already started training your dog using verbal cues?
That's not a problem, because your dog can easily unlearn their previous training and master the new training that you’ll learn in this free workshop.
Check out the free workshop, click the link.
Train your dog to become as obedient and well-behaved as a service dog.
