You just adopted a new dog, but you don't know how to go about training it. Maybe you even considered hiring a dog trainer for your unruly pup. Fortunately, you don't have to turn to a professional to do the training when you can do it yourself.
If you have no idea where to begin, that's okay. These free online dog training courses will help you teach your dog some new tricks without breaking the bank.
1. Leerburg University's How We Manage Dogs in Our Home
Leerburg University is an online school dedicated to dog training. While most of its courses cost money, it offers one class for beginners: "How We Manage Dogs in Our Home."
The course is taught by Ed Frawley, owner of Leerburg University. He's a seasoned dog trainer with decades of experience. In other words, you can expect to learn a lot from his lectures.
The course centers around the best ways to integrate a puppy into your household. When you first bring a dog into your home, you'll almost always encounter behavior problems. Whether your puppy chews shoes, nips, or is out of control on the leash, you can always work with your dog to solve these problems.
Frawley goes over solutions for almost every dog training issue you might come across. It's broken up into a series of 69 videos for a total of about three hours.
2. Wagfield Academy
Wagfield Academy offers three free courses that you can take advantage of. The goal of the academy is to provide affordable dog training, and that's exactly what it does. You have to sign up to the site to start taking the courses, but it's well worth it.
If you have a new puppy, you should begin by taking Puppy 101. Here, you can find information on everything from crate training, house training, leash walking, and much more. Each segment is accompanied by a video, written instructions, as well as helpful hints. You can also take a quiz that tests your knowledge of what you've learned.
Once your dog reaches adulthood, you should tune into Wagfield Academy's course titled The Basics. It starts by helping you teach your dog to listen and ends with the best ways to socialize your dog. If your dog has the bad habit of running away, you might want to think about getting a GPS tracker for your dog, and honing in on teaching it those listening skills. Although some of these segments come with articles only, it's still a very helpful course.
Wagfield Academy also offers Resue Refresher, which is specifically for untrained dogs you've just rescued. However, these courses are identical to the ones in the Puppy 101 course.
3. American Kennel Club (AKC) Training
The AKC is a registry of purebred dog pedigrees and is most known for its extravagant dog shows. Even if you don't want to show your dog, you can benefit from reading through the Training section on their site.
Most of the content of this section is in the form of in-depth articles. However, you can choose to filter the content by videos only. Just note that there are only a handful of training videos, and most of them have to do with training your dog for shows and agility competitions.
Despite the lack of videos, the AKC still gives you plenty of helpful training advice. Most articles offer detailed instructions on how to handle certain situations with your dog.
For example, the article titled "Alone Time for Dogs: How Much Is Too Much?" informs you of the proper amount of socialization for your dog, and the signs of separation anxiety. Whether your dog is a puppy or an adult, you can find articles suitable for your needs.
4. Blue Cross Dog Advice
The UK's Blue Cross has an entire section on its website dedicated to dog advice. This section doesn't only include training tips---it also houses dozens of articles related to dog care, health, pet hacks, and more. It's a great resource for first-time dog owners, or for anyone struggling to resolve their pet's behavioral issues.
The Training and games subcategory has the tools you need to train your dog. Each article provides easy-to-follow solutions for common training issues.
You can learn anything from the basics of playing with your dog, toilet training your puppy or adult dog, the best ways to train your puppy, and how to stop your dog from pulling on the leash.
You'll notice that some articles are also accompanied by videos. These short videos give you a more thorough understanding of what's written, so make sure you watch them!
5. Puppy Raiser Course for Retrieving Independence
You can find thousands of helpful courses on Udemy, including some that pertain to dog training. This specific course is completely free, and comes with several lectures to help you better understand dogs and training in general.
As you might notice from its title, "Puppy Raiser Course for Retrieving Independence," the course has been specifically made for a nonprofit organization called Retrieving Independence.
Although the course is meant to help volunteers train and raise service dogs, it's still beneficial to anyone raising a puppy.
Since you're not a volunteer in the organization, you can skip the first introductory segment of the course. Start at the segment titled "Understanding Dog Behavior." Knowing why your dog has certain instinctual habits can help you in the training process.
From there, you can proceed to watch the actual training videos. It addresses everything from common puppy problems to the fundamentals of socialization. The last segment of the course has to do with your dog's everyday behavior, including feeding and leash manners.
Simple and Cheap Dog Training
After taking all these free dog training courses, you'll soon become an amateur dog trainer. These courses cover almost everything you need to know about your pup and they provide a solid foundation for you to start the training. These great dog training apps will help too. Remember that you don't need to have a puppy in order to start training either---older dogs still have hope!
Since your dog isn't fully trained yet, you might want to keep an eye on it when you're not home using one of these pet cameras to monitor your furry friend when you're away.