The ‘no’ command is a widely used command throughout dog training and is used to tell your dog not to do something or to stop them in their tracks to avoid dangerous situations or general bad behavior.

I think of the no command as more of a training technique rather than a command and to perfect the technique you will need to be consistent for most of your time with your pet dog. The no command isn’t like other commands and is taught over several years rather than a ‘learn it and forget it’ dog training technique.

You can start to teach your dog the no command as soon as you see your cute little puppy doing something wrong for the first time, to most people the command will come naturally when they see their dog causing terror in the house and it will not be too hard for them to remember how to execute the technique.

The no command should come part and parcel with punishing your dog, the idea behind the no command is to teach your dog that ‘no’ means bad behavior and punishment, after teaching this command the end result will be that your dog should stop whatever they are doing when you say ‘no’.

So to make this command work you will need to enforce and recite ‘no’ in a very assertive way whenever you are punishing your dog or see your dog behaving badly that will result in punishment. By doing this your dog will associate ‘no!’ with being punished and making you the owner, unhappy.

If you do this consistently through your dogs earlier years, especially when your dog is a puppy and very impressionable you will gain respect from your dog and just saying ‘no’ alone will be enough to stop your dog in its tracks and save you punishing your dog.

Posted by John Williams Dog Training on 2008-12-14 22:54:01