Consistency in dog training

A problem I encounter a lot is dogs slipping back in their training. We have some great lessons initially and lots of progress is made. Then we have a lesson where unwanted behaviours have slipped back in and they are no longer sharp on their commands. This is always due to one thing: complacency of the owner that leads to a lack of consistency in dog training.

Bonny the Flat Coated Retreiver has been making great progress with me. However, in a recent lesson her recall was off and she was not coming back with retrieves. Her owners were so delighted with her previous progress that they had taken their foot off in training. Overloving and too much play had crept back in, disrupting the training structure. After getting them back on track, we had a great lesson again this week.

Train your dog everyday

These set backs can happen at any time with your dog if you lose focus on them. We’ve blogged about training Lola, the English pointer. The focus has been on her training and the other dog in the family, also an English Pointer, has started slipping in her recall and stop commands. When I trained Meggie years ago, I told her owner she would need training every day and nothing has changed. These basic commands need to be constantly reinforced. As a result of consistency in dog training, you can achieve so much; inconsistency leads to the dog taking control.

Posted: June 10, 2019