5 Steps To Training Your Pet

Pets are more like our kids. We treasure, nurture and protect them and in return, they become that loyal companion that brightens our day and offers that pure unconditional love. The mere fact that your pet is an animal calls for you to train it on a few things in order to modify its behavior or improve its skills.

In that regard, here are 5 steps to training your pet:

1. Show The Pet Your Action

The first step to training your pet is to illustrate the action or command which you want it to learn. Animals process things in their minds differently. You need to use a combination of words to pass a message across to them in a way that they can understand and respond to you.

When you say words that are connected to an action, for example, ‘sit’ and then illustrate the action to the pet, it will begin to connect that word and voice to that particular action. At this point in the training, you’ve created some interest in the pet and directed its attention towards learning something.

2. Introduce A Meal As A Reward

The second step to training your pet is attaching a reward to a completed action. Using a meal as a reward will stimulate the pet’s mind and give it a zeal to want to practice and do what you are showing it in order to get fed.

Illustrate the action or command again to your pet while holding the meal next to you. Your pet may opt not to respond to the action by either forcing its way to get the meal or acting cute and sweet to lure you to feed it. Don’t feed it. If you do, it won’t focus on what you are trying to teach it.

3. Show The Pet Some Appreciation

Once your pet makes some effort to learn what you are training it to do, respond to it with excitement and appreciation. You can clap, shout with excitement, feed it, or embrace it. This makes the pet view the action as something good. Bear in mind that the pet knows you as its master. It knows that if it can please you then you can trust it and it will make the effort to do so.

4. Repeat The Process Again Several Times

Your pet’s mind is now tuned to the fact that there’s something you need it to know and do. On your part, you want the action or command to become a natural thing to it that it will be doing on multiple occasions.

This then calls for you to repeat the process several times. Let your concentration be completely on the pet. Appreciate it and keep drilling in the concept to it. Repeat over and over until the pet accepts and embraces what you’ve trained it to do.

5. Minimize Your Attention

After repeating the concept several times and seeing the pet getting the gist of it, you can begin toning down on the appreciation and reward that you show it. The aim of this is to make the concept learned to be registered to the pet as a normal thing.

You want the pet to understand that it should respond to you at all times when you command it to perform the action you’ve trained it without expecting any form of reward.