I'm the same and I was sad to discover that there aren't any good science-based resources on dog training. What you'll find are books and videos based on the au

I'm the same and I was sad to discover that there aren't any good science-based resources on dog training. What you'll find are books and videos based on the author's personal experience. You'll find pieces of advice from respected authors that directly contradict each other. What I realized after adopting my dog is that dogs are much smarter than we think in a lot of ways. They adapt to your habits and lifestyle very quickly and they go out of their way to please you. Their emotions are much more complex than we think. If you develop a good relationship with your dog (and with this, almost no advice can help, it has to happen naturally), everything else follows naturally. No book learning will help you with that - it certainly didn't help me, even though I read tons of books and watched many videos before getting my dog. Dog training is a lot like parenting in that respect. EDIT: after thinking a bit, I realized I can give two pieces of advice that I think are very important. (1) Early socialization. This should be your no. 1 priority. Go to puppy classes, go out of your way to meet as many different dogs and people as possible. Go to different places like parks, public transport, coffee shops, etc. (2) Something I realized that while positive training is very popular these days (for good reasons), there are some cases when you MUST be firm with your dog. You can't explain to a dog why going off the sidewalk without permission is extremely dangerous. The only way I could train my dog not to was to shout at him at the exact moment he tried it, and praise him a lot when he turned around. Now he is off-leash 99% of the time and 100% reliable. I never ever beat him though - the only negative reinforcement I needed was a very quick and loud scolding.