Tips For Training Your Golden Retriever

All right – you’ve finally made the decision to get yourself a sweet little Golden Retriever puppy, and now you want to know how to train it. Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to give you some of the best tips on training your Golden Retriever.

One thing is for sure. Golden Retriever puppies love to chew. They’re going to chew the hell out of your slippers, curtains, shoes – or anything they can get their paws on! So this is an area where we will focus first. The fact is, they are going to chew because they are teething, and need to chew on something. So, giving them chew toys may help you solve this problem, but here’s something else you can do. Take some ice cubes, and fill them in an old sock. Knot the sock at the top, and place it in the freezer. When you see your dog getting itchy to chew something, give him the sock then. Make sure you stick around to see that they don’t accidentally swallow it or choke themselves on it.

Another good tip for training your Golden Retriever is to develop a daily routine for it. Water and food should be given in the same place every meal to ensure that the pup knows where it has to go to eat and drink. Ideally, your dog should be getting three meals (Lunch, Evening snack, Dinner) at similar times each day to regularize his eating habits. The pup should also grow up knowing where it will sleep every night. It should be in the same place. Timings should also be applied to ensure that the dog understands what time it should sleep and get up. Most importantly, timings for walks and going to the bathroom should be regularized with a vengeance. Golden Retrievers love to walk, and have a keen sense of direction. They always want to know that everything is okay in their surroundings, and where stuff is kept. Having a schedule for your Golden Retriever gives him confidence in knowing that things are routine, and predictable. It also makes him trust you and depend on you.

It is easy to teach your Golden Retriever pup some new words. An easy tip for training your Golden Retriever is to teach words with phonetic meaning. For example, you can teach it to understand ‘no’ with a phonetic ‘nooooooo’ or ‘Uh-huh’ or ‘NO!’ or ‘Stop’. Similarly, you can pet the dog and praise it with phonetic sounds like ‘good boy’ or ‘good’ or ‘that’s good’. Dogs can feel the difference in your tone more than they grasp the word itself. You will see them grasp these commands much faster this way along with ‘sit’,’ stand’, etc. Teach them to ‘stay’ in their dog house or crate when they sleep using this technique as well.

Once they are over 3 to 6 months old, you can increase the number of commands to include sitting for long periods of time, lying down, stop barking, interact with other pets and guests, walk properly when on the leash, to come when you call, to give you an object or fetch it for you, among many others. You can teach them to react to tugs on the leash, such as moving in the direction of the tug. You can get them used to the idea of a collar and leash by letting them move freely with it attached and not holding it.

Hopefully the above tips for training your Golden Retriever will make things a lot easier for you.