Hey, fellow pet lovers!! 

Today’s post is short and simple one all about the importance of training your canine friend as January is National Train Your Dog Month. It’s time to start training your pooch a variety of new tricks and in today’s post I have linked a few great training videos for the basics commands such as Sit and Stay, down and Stand.

Let’s jump straight into today’s post and learn all about National Train Your Dog Month 2019!!

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National Train Your Dog Month 2019

National Train Your Dog Month is on its eighth year and is brought to us by The Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT). This year they hope to help pet owners to train their dog on everyday manners such as Sit, Wait, Stay and Down.

The Association of Professional Dog Trainers is an American dog training association that helps dog trainers, new or experienced dog owners and their four-legged friends by offering advice, support and training. The APDT can help dog owners find a local trainer or help professional trainers by improving their experience, qualifications and increasing customer referrals by helping trainers access the many benefits from being part of a five thousand strong community.

The APDT offers a variety of courses one being CLASS which stands for Canine Life And Social Skills. This course was developed by the APDT based on various input from dog owners, shelter workers and professional dog trainers. It is a three level assessment for dog owners to demonstrate the real-life skills of their dogs and also a knowledge assessment of the dog owners understanding of basic dog handling.

As well as this course they also offer various webinar-based training courses with two different study options, the other courses they offer are

• Fear Free: Be the Change, 1.5 CEU.

• Introduction to learning, 101 (CEU 20)

• Navigating the Wild West of Service Dogs with Veronica Sanchez (CEU=1)

• Understanding LIMA (CEU=2.0)

• Starting Your Dog Biz (CEU=2.0)

To learn more about The American Dog Training Association or the many courses they offer simply follow the links above to head to their website. Now that we have learned a little bit about APDT its time to move on and talk about the importance of doing daily or weekly training with your canine companion.

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Why is it important to do daily or weekly training with your pet?

Training our canine friends to behave correctly is vital, it doesn’t matter if your pet is a pup or a fully matured pooch you need to ensure you’re doing weekly training with them to work on any issues they may have, or simply teach them new tricks to provide them with much-needed mental stimulation.

Either way, training our pets is super important and it is something I defiantly need to make more time for, thankfully, its National Train Your Dog Month so I plan on doing a lot more training with Nia and Lily over the next few weeks, as well as the rest of the year.

There are many benefits to taking time out of your day to do some training with your pet such as

• Training provides your pet with essential mental stimulation, helping them to be more calm and relaxed.

Just like physical stimulation, your pet requires mental stimulation as well to live a happy and healthy life, doing daily or weekly training with your four-legged friend will help provide them with the essential mental stimulation they require.

• Training strengthens the bond between you and your pet.

Spending quality time with your pet strengthens your bond and this is something I love about taking time out to do training with your canine companion. Watching my girls learn a new command is really rewarding and I’m looking forward to teaching them a variety of new tricks this month.

• It is super fun to teach your pet new tricks.

Teaching your pet new commands is really fun and I remember when I was teaching little Lily how to sit properly or pretty as some people call it, she picked it up super quickly and I loved seeing her rise to the challenge and learn something new.

• It makes being a pet owner a lot easier!!

Having a pet who does what they are told and acts correctly in certain situations is by far better than a pooch who doesn’t listen to a single word your saying. By taking time out of your week to train your pet the basics and then move onto more advanced commands you will have a properly behaved pet, which makes being a pet parent a lot easier!!

In today’s post, I am going to briefly mention the basics and link some great training videos to help you get started if your canine friend doesn’t know these commands already. Thankfully, my girls know the basics but there are certainly many more things that I need to teach them like roll over, crawl, and Lily could do with improving on her walking skills a little bit, as she has started to pull when we’re going somewhere exciting like the park.

As you can see there are many benefits of training your pet so if you are guilty of not doing any training with your pet then why not start this January, since its National Train Your Dog Month?

Basic Commands to teach your Canine Friend

• Sit and Stay.

Sit is one of the easiest commands to teach your canine friend and Lily and Nia picked it up on day one. You need treats on hand for teaching your pet any new commands, to start off with simply have a treat in your hand and allow your pet to see it, get them in a position where they go to get the treat out of your hand and once they go into the sitting position simply give them the treat.

Once your pup or pooch has done this a few times start adding the command in by saying sit and once they sit give them their treat. Continue to do this until they understand what the command means.

Once your pet has gotten to grips with the sit command it is time to move onto stay, again you simply start by asking your pet to sit and rewarding them and then start to pause a little before giving them their treat. Once you have waited a few seconds before rewarding them, continue to increase the length of time and then simply add the command word stay and reward them for doing so.

Continue to repeat the process each day until you feel your pet understands the commands and sits and stays when asked. Here is a great video I found which shows you how to easily train your pet to sit and stay, How to Teach Your Puppy to Sit and Stay.

• Stand and Stand up Fully.

To teach your pet to stand is also very simple, both Nia and Lily can stand up fully on their back legs on command and it took them minutes to learn. Get a treat in your hand and simply let your pet know you have one and then ask them to sit and reward them.

Afterwards stand next to your pet and raise the treat so they have to stand on their two back legs to sniff it and once they are standing up fully on their back legs reward them with a treat and continue to do this a few times.

Once they understand that you want them to stand up fully and have successfully done so a few times, add the command word stand or stand fully and reward them. Continue to do this until you feel your pet understands the command fully.

A stand can also simply mean the move from a sitting position so if you want your pet to do this instead of standing up fully then watch this great video that will teach you how to get your pet to stand from a sitting position, Teach Your Dog to STAND – Dog Training Video – Robert Cabral – the STAND Command.

• Down.

Down is the last essential command in today’s post and it is something we taught the girls at a very early age.  Here is a great video to help you teach your canine friend this super simple but very useful command, How to Train a dog to Lie “Down” (K9-1.com).

• Roll over.

Roll over is something I am yet to teach the girls, Lily kind of gets it but not completely so it is something I’m going to teach both my girls this month. Here is a great video I found on how to teach your pet to roll over on command, Teach Your Dog to Roll Over.

I love strengthening my bond with my girls and one way to easily do this is by practising daily or weekly training with your pet. I’m guilty of not doing enough training with my girls but since it is National Train Your Dog Month I am certainly going to start doing a lot more training with Nia and Lily.

The list of commands above could go on and on and I think I might do a monthly training update on Nia and Lily so I’m held accountable to you guys and will stick to my girl’s training routine. If you do teach your pet any new tricks or your puppy the basics be sure to let me know in the comments below or head over to our social accounts and post a video of your pet showing off!!

I hope you all liked today’s simple yet informative post and if anyone has any post suggestions be sure to leave a comment below as I love hearing from you guys!! If you liked today’s post then let me know by hitting that like button or giving it a share so other pet parents can learn all about National Train Your Dog Month and teach their four-legged friend a trick or two.

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