If you have a dog, you should employ the techniques of basic dog training so
that you have a happy dog and a happy family. Some of the basic lessons that you should
teach your dog include:

• Recall. You have to teach your dog to come when you call. This is
  helpful so that you know your dog will come when you call if there is danger and is also the
  basic lesson a dog needs to learn before you can do any agility or later
  training.
• Sit and Down. The dog needs to learn to respond to these two
  commands in order to remain in place at the start line of a competition. It will also make
  things easier when there are other dogs around so that you won’t have to deal with an
  incident.
• Potty training. This is a basic training lesson that you need to
  teach your dog, whether it is large or small.
• Barking. This may be a hard lesson to teach dogs that they only
  bark when necessary. You have to teach them to bark on demand and one way to do this is
  to get them excited about something and then give the dog a reward. You also have
  to teach the dog to stop barking on your command and again rewards work well.
• Controlling aggression. If your dog is aggressive, you have to
  understand what iscausing the aggression. It may be territorial when other dogs are around or it
  may be protective of you and your family. In this regard, you may not be able to
  handle the training on your own, but have to seek professional help.

There are dog training books you can buy with all the techniques outlined
making it very easy for you to start using them. Socialization is one of the training areas
that will take you the longest amount of time. You have to desensitize the dog to new sights
and sounds, but if you present them as normal and non-threatening, your dog will not
have an adverse reaction.