Training your dog can be a rewarding experience, but it’s easy to fall into common mistakes—especially if you’re new to dog ownership or have only seen how friends and family handle their dogs. While mistakes are a natural part of the learning process, understanding what to avoid can help you get better results and even more importantly, create a strong bond with your dog.

Remember, it’s okay to make mistakes! We all do. The key is to be kind to yourself (and your dog) and not expect perfection. With that in mind, here are some common dog training mistakes I frequently encounter—and how to avoid them.

1. Inconsistency

Consistency is everything in dog training! If you have clear boundaries and rules for your dog, but other members of the household don’t follow them, it becomes nearly impossible to maintain those rules. As a family, agree on the “non-negotiables” that everyone will stick to.

For example:

  • If you don’t want your dog on the furniture, make sure no one else lets them up.

  • If you don’t want your dog to bark or whine for attention, ensure no one gives them attention or lets them inside or out of their crate while they’re making noise.

  • If you want your dog to greet people calmly, have everyone wait until the dog has all four paws on the ground before giving attention or affection (it’s so easy to pat and reward a cute dog that’s jumping up!).

2. Training When You're Frustrated or Anxious

Dogs are incredibly intuitive and have a powerful sense of smell that can detect pheromones. They can see changes in your postural communication that show when you're anxious or stressed as well. So if you’re anxious, stressed, or frustrated, they’ll pick up on it, which can make training more difficult. When you’re tense, your dog becomes tense too, making it harder for them to enter a calm “learning state.”

Before training, take a moment to breathe and centre yourself. If you’re feeling agitated, it’s better to take a break and try again later.

3. Misinterpreting Dog Body Language

Understanding your dog’s body language and vocal cues is crucial for effective training. For instance, when calling your dog to come, use a positive, high-pitched voice. If you growl “Come!” in a deep tone, your dog perceives this as a threat tone so why would they want to approach you?

Also, learn to recognise signs of stress in your dog, such as lip licking, yawning, or avoiding eye contact. If you see these signs, it may be a signal to ease off or help your dog through the situation in a supportive way.

4. Reinforcing Unwanted Behaviours

One of the most common mistakes is accidentally rewarding the very behaviours you’re trying to stop. If your dog gets a reward—whether it’s food, attention, or freedom—for a behaviour, they’re likely to repeat it.

For example:

  • If your dog whines to be let inside and you open the door, you’ve rewarded whining.

  • If your dog jumps up on you and you pet them, you’ve reinforced jumping.

  • If your dog pulls on the lead and you let them keep walking, you’ve taught them that pulling works.

The first step in training is to stop rewarding behaviours you don’t want.

5. Quitting Too Soon

Many dog owners put in a lot of effort in the first few weeks, then taper off once their dog has learned a few basic commands like sit, down, and stay. However, it’s essential to continue training and proof those behaviours in different environments. You don’t need to maintain the same level of intensity forever, but ongoing training (especially in new situations) helps solidify those lessons. This is particularly important for recall!

6. Moving Too Fast

Always begin training a new behaviour in a calm, distraction-free environment. If you jump ahead to a busy or highly stimulating setting, you’re setting both you and your dog up for failure. Could you learn a new language at a concert? Exactly… would be tough, right? Similarly, don’t expect your dog to immediately respond to a new command in a highly stimulating place like a beach or dog park. Teach at home first, then once the command is well established you can start to test it in gradually more distracting environments.

7. Saying One Thing But Communicating Another

Dogs are primarily postural communicators, though tone of voice is also important too. I frequently see dog owners using words to say one thing to their dog, but communicating an entirely different thing with their tone of voice and body language. For example, if their dog has reacted aggressively to another in the park, the owner might be saying “Bella, don’t you dare do that you naughty girl, you know you’re not allowed to do that!”. However the owner is using a high-pitched tone of voice and is crouched down, handling their dog. All the dog is hearing is “Good job Bella, you did just the right thing!”. 8. Failing To Reinforce Good Behaviours

Dogs thrive on positive reinforcement (don’t we all?). By far the easiest and most powerful way to do this is by using a marker to indicate the exact moment your dog is doing what you want (e.g. a clicker or a “yes” marker), then following up with a food reward. I personally use my dog Awa’s ADVANCE dog food during training sessions most of the time. It is highly palatable so a great option to generate motivation to work, and it keeps things simple as I can just portion off a bit of his daily diet to use for training throughout the day, and I don’t need to worry about overfeeding or too many fatty training treats! 9. Using Inappropriate Punishment

Never hit, kick, or physically harm your dog. Shouting, staring them down, dragging, or forcing them into submissive positions doesn’t work and only damages the bond you share with them. Similarly, rubbing their nose in urine or feces when they’ve had an accident is not only unkind—it’s ineffective. Dogs, unlike many humans, live in the present moment and don’t have a great short term memory. Their ability to connect consequences to past actions is limited. Therefore, punishing a dog for something they did even just a mere few moments ago generally serves little purpose beyond potentially causing confusion or fear. Canines lack the cognitive capacity to connect the dots between a past act and a subsequent punishment. It can also disrupts your bond and relationship with your dog if you are dishing out punishments. Many of the undesirable behaviours that we might wish to punish our dog for are also involuntary, so punishment will not change it in the moment or reinforce appropriate behaviour in future.

Instead - set your dog up for success in the first place by managing their environment (you don’t want shoes chewed = don’t leave shoes lying around!). From there, you can begin to reward the behaviours you DO want to see. Hope this helps you identify how you can improve your training sessions and relationship with your dog!

Save On Your Dog Training With ADVANCE Pet Food! Now you know what not to do, looking for guidance on the best way to train your dog? ADVANCE Pet Food can give you exclusive access to Mark Vette’s renowned Virtual Training Schools. These online courses give you everything you need to create an easy, happy and stress-free life with your dog! With options for new pups, distractible teenagers and older dogs with behavioural issues, Mark will guide you through your training with an easy-to-follow video course and Live Coaching Sessions for personalised help. Use code ADVANCE15 at check-out to get 15% for the duration of your membership. Learn more at www.dogzen.com

We use cookies to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic. See our cookie policy(Opens In a New Tab) You can use cookie settings to change your preferences.