Love Your Dog? Stop Doing These Things Today

5. Too many words!

Although you probably train your dog to respond to a few words, dogs actually don’t like to be spoken to too much. One reason is that using lots of different words and phrases for the same things confuses them. For example, “down!”, “get down,” “off the couch,” all for the same thing makes sense to humans, but not to dogs. Dogs need consistency. Another reason is they respond better to gestures, so always accompany your training words with a consistent gesture like pointing or moving your hand downward.