Hey there, and welcome to Pupster Passion.
This site is packed full of free tips and advice to help you care for and love your pet dog.
In this blog post, we are going to look into obedience training for older dogs.
Table of Contents
So now let’s talk about training older dogs…
How to Obedience Train an Older Dog
First, let’s get this old saying out of the way, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
This is total and utter bunkum. Old dogs can learn new tricks, just like old humans can learn new skills.
Yes, puppies, like young children, have a strong drive to learn new things, which is lower in older dogs.
But a dog of any age can be given effective obedience training assuming you follow the right steps.
Here are some key principles that you should follow with obedience training for any pet dog:
- Consistency is key
- Reward good behavior and punish bad behavior
- Repetition is the key to success.
- Treats make everything much easier.
Now let’s look at each one of these in more depth and detail:
Consistency is Key
If you act consistently with your dog, it will very quickly learn what you want it to do.
But if you are inconsistent, you will confuse the dog and potentially train in bad behaviors.
Reward Good Behavior and Punish Bad Behavior
Always reward good behavior with treats and/or praise and pets.
Always punish bad behavior by telling your dog off. You don’t need to be harsh; just let the dog know that you are not happy with its behavior.
Repetition is the Key to Success
You need to repeat the same steps repeatedly until the dog does them on autopilot. This can take a while, but it gets easier over time as the dog learns what it needs to do.
Treats Make Everything Much Easier
Using treats to entice the dog into good behavior and then rewarding it for doing so will make the training much more effective.
If you always do your best to use these principles when training an older dog to learn obedience, you will do well.
Thanks for stopping by to visit our website. We really appreciate you taking the time.
You might also like to read this post about problems with a young dog attacking an old dog or this one about an older dog losing weight but eating.
Video on Basics of Dog Training
And before you go, this video had a ton of excellent dog obedience training tips: