Training dogs is a lot like raising children. You use the same commands…sit, come, quiet, stop jumping on the couch, don’t bite the house guests, don’t pee on the carpet, get out of the trash, etc. And just like educating your child to have good manners, you’ll get further faster if you focus on the positive and remember to be loving and patient.

In a moment of absolute craziness, my husband and I brought two German Shepherd puppies home this summer. We intended to get one and had put a deposit on the most adorable little male, but while collecting our fury friend from the breeder my husband fell in love with our puppy’s sister. Since we are both soft-hearted and apparently soft headed, we ended up with two puppies, Max and Ellie.

Five months later we have two canine teenagers that weigh well over 60 pounds each and they’re still growing. We go through 70 pounds of dog food a month, daily vacuuming wouldn’t eradicate the dog hair and buying the pups was the least expensive part of our endeavor. But I digress…

We had a month between when we put a deposit on Max and when he would be old enough to bring home. I spent those four weeks devouring training articles. It had been more than a decade since I’d trained a dog, and I was determined to learn as much as I could before bringing a puppy home. After all, an untrained, obnoxious dog is about as much fun as a tooth ache.

In years past, animal training was all about force. Trainers taught (and many still do) that if you tell your dog to sit, for example, and the dog doesn’t…well, you simply have to make it. If you say down, and the dog doesn’t drop to his belly, you were supposed to wrestle him into a down position. There was no room for error. A command was a command and as the pack leader you had to demand obedience.

Today’s more enlightened trainers have abandoned the sit or else method in favor of positive reinforcement. Just as most parents have wisely chosen to find methods other than spanking to modify behavior, the animal training world has turned to clicker training, a method based on behavioral psychology that relies on marking desirable behavior and rewarding it. The marker is a little mechanical device that makes a clicking sound.

“The difference between an animal that behaves with purpose, rather than by habit, is vast. Clicker trained or operantly conditioned animals try to learn new behaviors. They remember behaviors even years later because they were aware of them as they learned them, rather than acquiring them without awareness. They develop confidence because they have control over the consequences of their actions. They are enthusiastic because they expect those consequences to be pleasurable.”  –Karen Pryor

After spending a month in research mode, I still wasn’t completely convinced that clicker training could work, but I was determined to train my dogs and started setting the alarm clock an hour earlier. Every day for four months, the two dogs and I spent at least an hour playing and training before anyone else in the house opened their eyes, and I started clicker training. The results were amazing. Within days both puppies were responding to sit, lay down, touch and wait. I didn’t have to rais my voice and I never had to force them to do anything. They were willing participants in their own education and they were eager to learn. That attitude continues today.

As I became more skilled with the clicker and my dogs responded, I realized that the training method fell exactly in-line with my parenting beliefs. If you hit a child, you teach your child to hit. If you hit a dog, you teach him to be fearful and aggressive. If you yell at your child, you teach your child not to listen and you diminish her self worth. If you yell at a dog, you teach your dog not to listen or to comply through fear.

I had my own clicker moment during a training session when I was tiered and frustrated. Ellie was having an ADD moment and I shouted at her. It was a first. She looked at me in complete dismay. She was confused and she had those sad puppy eyes you see on Humane Society posters. She looked exactly like my son does when I lose my cool and yell.

Has it been a tad bit crazy with a three-year-old and two puppies in the house. You bet. Do I have any regrets? Absolutely not. We have a long way to go in our training but I’ve learned a lot from Max and Ellie, probably more than they’ve learned from me, and I’ve re-vowed to be a patient parent with a soft voice.

Download Survival Skills for Dogs by Gary Wilkes

If you also think life's too short to be quiet, you can subscribe for your daily dose of Shout here.