Processed dog foods path to themselves hours at night nearly Within that session, you can work on one skill or switch between a few different skills. To keep things interesting, try doing 5 to 15 repetitions of one behavior and then doing 5 to 15 repetitions of another behavior. You can also practice new skills and keep old ones polished by doing single repetitions at convenient times throughout the day. For example, before giving your dog a tasty new chew bone, ask her to sit or lie down to earn it. For dogs, English is a second language Dogs aren't born understanding English. They can learn the significance of specific words, like sit and walk and treat, but when humans bury those familiar words complex sentences, dogs sometimes have difficulty understanding. They can also get confused when people use different words for the same thing. For example, some people confuse their dogs by saying, Fluffy, down! one day and Sit down, Fluffy! another day. Then they wonder why Fluffy doesn't respond the same way every time. When teaching your dog a cue or command, decide on just one word or phrase, and make sure you and your family use it clearly and consistently. Take baby steps Dogs, just like people, learn best when new tasks are broken down into small steps. For example, you can't go out and line dance unless you learn all of the individual steps first! When teaching your dog a new skill, begin with easy first step and increase difficulty gradually. If you're training your dog to stay, start by asking her to stay for just 3 seconds. After some practice, try increasing the duration of her stay to 8 seconds. When your dog has mastered 8-second stay, make things a little harder by increasing the time to 15 seconds. Over the next week or two, continue to gradually increase the duration of the stay from 15 seconds to 30 seconds to a minute to a few minutes, etc. By training systematically and increasing difficulty slowly, you'll help your dog learn faster the run. Work on only one part of a skill at a time of the skills we want our dogs to learn are complex. For instance, if you want to train a solid sit-stay, you'll need to work on teaching your dog that she should stay a sitting position until you release her she should stay while you move away from her and she should stay while distracting things are going on around her You'll probably both get frustrated if you try to teach her all of these things at the same time. Instead, start with just one part of the skill and, when your dog has mastered that, add another part. For example, you can work on duration first. When your dog can sit-stay for a few minutes a quiet place with no distractions while you stand right next to her, start training her to stay while you move away from her. While you focus on that new part of the skill, go back to asking your dog to stay for just a few seconds again. When your dog can stay while you move around the room, slowly build up the duration of the stay again. Then you can add the next part-training a more distracting environment. Again, when you make the skill harder by adding distraction, make the other parts-duration and distance-easier for a little while. If you work on all the parts of a complex skill separately before putting them together, you'll set your dog up to succeed. If you run into trouble, go back a few steps If you're training your dog to do something new and you stop making progress, you have increased the difficulty of the skill too quickly. Similarly, if you're practicing a behavior your dog hasn't performed a while and she seems a little she need some help remembering what you want her to do. If you run into training challenges like these, just refresh your dog's memory by making the skill a little easier for a few repetitions. Go back to a step that you know your dog can successfully perform, and practice that for a while before trying to increase difficulty again. Practice everywhere, with everyone If you learn that two plus two equals four a classroom, you'll take that information with you wherever you go. Dogs, however, learn very specifically and 't automatically apply their knowledge different situations and places as well as people do. If you teach your dog to sit on cue your kitchen, you'll have a beautifully kitchen-trained dog. But she might not understand what you mean when you ask her to sit other locations. If you want your dog to perform new skills everywhere, you'll need to practice them multiple places-your home, your yard, out on walks, at friends' houses, at the park and anywhere you take your dog. Use real rewards Be sure to reward your dog with things she truly finds rewarding. Some dogs happily work for dry kibble when training your living room but ignore it if you're training the park. Because the park's a more distracting environment, paying attention there is a harder job for your dog. Pay her accordingly by