Dog training is crucial for a healthy bond between our beloved puppies and us. We understand your struggle and therefore, have created an excellent Portland Dog Training Company.
Fuzzy Faces Dog Training Portland is here to help with all your dog training needs. Give us a call today at 503-731-8774 and let us train your dog for you. We offer affordable hourly rates and only hire the best trainers.
Continue reading the article below to learn more about the dog training process and the types of training we provide.
Types of dog training
This Portland Dog Training resource covers various fronts such as puppy training, dog leash training, no bark training, and more. So, without further ado, let’s teach you how to train your Portland dog.
Puppy Training
Seeing our dogs go through puppyhood is an incredible experience, but it’s not all fun and games. You must instill certain behavioral traits from the get-go. This work may sound like a daunting responsibility, especially for first-time pet owners. But fret not, as this Portland dog training guide will aptly prepare you to take on this responsibility.
Curbing bad behavior can be tricky. An excellent idea is ignoring bad behavior while rewarding desired behaviors. If you neglect your puppy while it’s nipping on your hand, it will learn that this method of seeking attention does not work. When it stops biting, reward it with its favorite treat.
In other instances where your puppy might harm itself or damage things, you should redirect it to a similar yet safe activity. For example, if your pup is chewing wires, interrupt it, and redirect it towards a chew toy.
Moreover, to familiarize your puppy with its crate, start concise crate sessions at an early age. The ideal time for this is when it’s mellow and sleepy. You can also keep treats and toys inside, so your puppy is inclined to sit in it.
Next, familiarize your puppy with its name. Start by teaching your dog to look at the person who takes its name. Similarly, teach it basic instructions such as sit/stay, etc. As your puppy learns, be sure to give it treats, and toys to play with as incentives.
Dog Leash Training
Apart from behavioral training, we also need to make sure our dogs are good at listening to our commands and walking on a leash. But putting your dog on a leash and taking it out for a walk without prior training is the perfect recipe for disaster. If you’re not sure where to start, this Portland dog training guide is here to help you out with just that.
Start by walking your puppy indoors in a straight line with a leash. Lack of distractions and easy directions will help you through the initial stages of leash training. Once your puppy has grasped this introduction, bump its training up a notch.
Take your pup to the park and try keeping your puppy calm during this walking session. Slowly extend its leash and allow it to heel and sniff for a minute or so. Then, call it back and reward it for listening to instructions and paying attention. Gradually increase the number of distractions in your puppy’s surroundings while on a leash. With patience and time, you will be able to take your puppy out for walks without any trouble.
Make sure the leash is at least 2 meters or 6 ft long. While you’re out for a walk, keep some of your dog’s favorite treats on hand. Having some treats will have two benefits. You can use the dog treats to call your dog back if it’s distracted easily, and these treats will reinforce good behavior.
Potty Training
Our Portland dog training guide takes potty training as a scheduled exercise. Dogs need to go right after they wake up, eat, drink, or even during playtime. Keep this in mind and promptly take your puppy outside. It is also a good idea to take it out once during the night if need be.
Another critical aspect of potty training is feeding. If you feed a fixed amount of food at a predefined time every day, you can create a pretty reliable potty schedule. This plan helps take the stress off your mind and makes training more manageable.
Apart from the above mentioned instructions, potty training needs to be just like any other behavioral training; by rewarding good behavior, and NOT punishing undesirable behavior.
It is a bad idea to scold or punish your puppy. Instead, it is healthier and productive if you strictly supervise your puppy and take it out promptly. If your puppy is unable to indicate that it needs to go, you can use bell training to help with that.
You can bell train your puppy by applying peanut butter on the bell. Every time your dog wants to go out, it will ring the bell with its tongue and let you know.
No Bark training
Barking can become a nuisance if your puppy does not have proper training. For this aspect of your dog’s training, you need to think of the context in which it is barking. The appropriate approach to curb this behavior will depend on knowing why your dog barked.
Sometimes, your dog might bark to get attention. To discourage barking for care, ignore it until your dog stops barking, instruct it to keep quiet and reward it with a carrot biscuit or store brought treats.
On the other hand, if your dog is barking to scare something away, or because something is making it anxious, ignoring it won’t work. Your dog was not demanding your attention in the first place. It is better to distract it or indulge in another activity with your dog.
Understanding your dog’s barking is integral because you need to find the underlying cause. Without understanding the reason your dog resorts to barking, you may not be able to stop it. Even if you do curb it, the underlying issue may manifest itself in some other manner.
Agility Training
Agility training dogs has numerous benefits. It can be done for fun, as well as approached with a more competitive spirit. Agility training can be tricky than other forms of exercise, but if done the right way, anyone can succeed at it.
Agility training has various stages. But before your dog can train, it needs to have proficiency in the foundational steps. This understanding means, your dog must be proficient in sit/stay, targeting, and come commands, among others. Once you have mastered that, only then can you begin with agility training.
Agility training has many different skills that your dog needs to learn. Some of these take on foundational skills, while others may be more advanced.
These skills include:
Advanced stays
Recall
Leash Manners
Impulse control
Cue discrimination
Settling down quietly
Superior Attention
Hand Targeting
Polite greetings
Agility training program in different classes and programs
Dog training process
The dog training process can be lengthy and frustrating. In particular, first time owners who may not realize where they are making mistakes and halting their dog’s training progress might have problems. It’s important to remember that your dog will not adapt to the training and learn everything in 2 weeks; that is simply an unrealistic expectation. You will need to be patient and give it time.
Even with good behaviors instilled in their dogs, some owners still face issues. Such issues happen because the owners are not experienced enough to provide adequate training. Other times the owners don’t have that much time to supervise their dogs all day long.
It is essential to start slowly and progress at a pace that your puppy can keep up with the learning. Conduct frequent but short training sessions with your dog and not to make your puppy’s training sessions lengthy.
Train it in short periods of 5-10 minutes multiple times throughout the day, rather than one long session of training in the morning. Reinforce good behavior to make it a permanent habit by giving it toys and treats. Punishment is a big no in all cases while rewarding your dog can, in most cases, be beneficial.
For puppies to develop good habits, we must remember to reward them adequately. This approach is necessary to mention since bad behavior gets noticed quickly, but good practice sometimes goes unnoticed. To strengthen good habits, you should reward your puppy with a treat, such as kibbles, carrot treats, etc.
Fuzzy Faces Dog Training excels in dog training as well as coaching dog parents on effective dog training methods.
back to menu ↑Why Hire our Company – Fuzzy Faces Dog Training
The primary reason why pet parents fail to train their Portland dog properly is the lack of time. However, here at Fuzzy Faces Dog Training, our training schedules are flexible depending on the pace your puppy can keep up with smoothly. This flexibility yields promising results.
We conduct counseling sessions with dog parents to help them understand their pets better and continue the training process, even when they are not at home. Our dogs get adequate attention hours while still not getting overwhelmed by the training sessions. To keep our dog’s happy, we make sure we give plenty of playtime to them during training sessions.
back to menu ↑Listing of / Information about the different dog rescues/pet shelters near Portland
Oregon Humane Society:
Address: 1067 NE Columbia Blvd, Portland, OR 97211, USA
Family Dogs New Life Shelter:
Address: 9101 SE Stanley Ave, Portland, OR 97206, USA
Animal Aid Inc:
Address: 5335 SW 42nd Ave, Portland, OR 97221, USA
Listing of Places / Parks to Walk your Dog in Portland
Mt Tabor Off-Leash Dog Park:
Address: 2219 SE 68th Ave, Portland, OR 97215, USA
Dog Park:
Address: 3148 NE 8th Ave, Portland, OR 97212, USA
Sacajawea Park (Dog Park Off-leash Area):
Address: NE 75th St and NE Roselawn St, Portland, OR 97218, USA
Fernhill Park Dog Off-leash Area:
Address: 4050 NE Holman St, Portland, OR 97211, USA.