Allowing your dog to beg is a common training mistake. A dog that has never received food from you when you are eating at the table will no longer continue to beg. He might try it once or twice early on in your relationship. With consistent “no’s” and “go lay down” commands will quickly discourage him from further attempts. However, if you give in, even just once and give him a piece of you are eating, he’ll know that begging worked. Therefore, with common sense, your dog will gain the idea that what works once, will eventually work again.

Inconsistency may seem like such a small thing, but it may leave you destined to fail. Constantly measured attention is absolutely essential when training your dog. Deviate away from any routine you may have built up will almost always undo all that hard work you have done previous.

Calling your dog for punishment will not get you anywhere. Let us focus on why it’s not good to call your dog to your side in order to get mad at him. Nobody wants to go over to someone when they know they are going to get in trouble. This is even true with adults, children, and especially a dog. People know you’re not likely to forget your anger, but a dog is hopeful, and will try everything to avoid you if he knows you’re angry. In your dogs mind, every time you call him to you in order to do something unpleasant, you are punishing him for returning to you. So, if your dog is in trouble, or you have to do something he won’t like, go and get him, instead of calling him.

Rewarding the wrong behavior will happen to all of us at some point or another. This is one of the most common mistakes made when dog training. You may not even think of it as necessarily rewarding your dog. You may see it as a method of comforting him when he’s frightened, or perhaps letting him in when he barks, or even giving him a stern talking to when ever he misbehaves. Attention of any kind when a dog misbehaves is a signal to the dog. The dog may interpret this attention as this works, it’s not quite what I was looking for, but it’s still some kind of attention.” Even negative attention may seem better than none at all.