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Responsible dog owners understand that a trained dog is a good dog. From basic obedience to advanced techniques, proper socialization and instruction is not only necessary to have your dog be a good canine citizen, but it will help keep your dog safe and happy. Here are some tips to help you train your dog or find a trainer.

You need consistently let your dog know it when he is not behaving like you want. Do not reinforce undesirable behavior. By reinforcing what is wrong, it will help the dog develop bad habits and they will start ignoring your commands for behaving right. They will then regularly misbehave, and that's not good.

Socialization is an important part of dog training. Try positive reinforcement when introducing your dog to new people. When visitors arrive, have them feed the dog a special treat. This is also effective when meeting people in unfamiliar environments. In time, the dog will associate meeting new people with pleasant experiences.

When formally training your dog to complete specific skills like sitting or shaking hands on command, work with them in short slots of time interspersed throughout the day. Just as humans can grow bored or even angry when being required to complete one monotonous action after another, so can dogs.

Dog training can be frustrating. If you have found yourself to be upset because you are not making progress, go ahead and take a break before trying it again. The dog is always watching you and learning, so if it can see you are upset it will react in a similar manner.

It is important that you never hit your dog or slap it in the face. That will not deter the bad behavior and it could cause some potential problems. Your dog may begin to fear you every time you get near it, so avoid hitting your animal during dog training.

Start out using a clicker for dog training rather than voice commands. Dogs do not understand human language easily. Using a clicker at the beginning of training allows the dog to easily associate simple clicks with positive behavior. Once your dog understands simple clicking actions, you can replace the clicks with very simple voice commands.

If possible, begin training your dog when they are young. A skill that is taught early on is often learned faster and easier than a skill that is introduced at a later age. In addition, older dogs have often picked up quite a few negative behaviors over the course of their life; these behaviors must be undone before the training process can begin.

To train your dog, do not establish yourself as dominating. You should make it clear that you are the teacher, but never make your dog feel like he has to be submissive towards you. Building your dog's confidence with praise and positive reinforcement will build his confidence and make training much easier.

We hope these tips will help you -- and other people the two of you encounter -- enjoy your dog to the fullest. Proper training makes dog ownership more rewarding and less stressful. Whether you decide to take on the challenge of training your dog yourself or you want to find a pro, training will help you enjoy many happy years with your dog.