People should not humanize dogs. Unjust treatment may lead to a disastrous result. Thus helpful interpretation and effective communication are necessary if you want to train your dog.
The initial period of training with your dog will be the most important phase of all, because it will establish the pattern for all subsequent training. For this reason, you should be well informed before embarking on the task – and armed with a great deal of patience just like pet portrait artists.
It is no use rushing the building up of trust between handler and dog, so try not to be neurotic about it. The dog will come round eventually, but only if you give yourself and the animal time to develop and adapt. Consistency means everything to your dog. If you have punished him once for a particular type of behavior, for example, you must continue to do so until he desists, otherwise the dog will become confused. This will be distressing for him, because he really wants to please you.
Once you and your dog have mastered the basics of sit, stay, come and heel, you will be ready to embark on more advanced training, such as tricks or “remotely” controlling your dog’s movements with distance commands for right and left. It should be noted that human language in itself is not always clearly distinguishable to the dog’s ears. After all, a dog’s barking sounds pretty much the same to us, whatever the animal is trying to say. For this reason, “left” and “right” are probably inappropriate words to use, whereas the command in Welsh, “come by” seems to work very well for a left turn.