How to Condition and Train Your Pets at Home

the best technique for training your pet.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• treats

1. to start of you must have something your pet really enjoys to eat preferably a treat. then the first step is to make your pet do the desired action.

2. for the second step you give the pet the treat or reward for the action desired, thus creating an association between the action and the reward for your pet. If this is a difficult task you may break it down into pieces (a.k.a. shaping) to a reward for the first part, the first part and the second part, the first, second, and third, etc... make sure your pet has the ability to perform each step as desired and can perform them together before taking the next step.

3. after you have instilled the association of the desired action and reception of a reward in your pet it is important to avoid rewarding the pet everytime it acts. keeping the pet on a variable ratio with rewards keeps the pet on its toes always looking for that reward. if it knows when the rewards coming its working by a routine not on command which could cause undesired timing or loss of interest.

Tips & Warnings

• be patient
• finding the best reward brings the best results
• may not work on all pets
• some pets may not be as suseptable as others
• as always take care when handling animals

[cadence]

on 7/26/2009 Good advice - I'm terrible at training my pets. :)

[Teachforever]

on 6/11/2009 Thanks for the advice on pet training. Very good article.5*****