Dog obedience training schools have changed their teaching methods over recent decades as animal psychologists have learned more about how dogs learn. Older training manuals advocate methods such as swatting your dog on the nose with a folded newspaper to teach it to heel. . .Today’s dog obedience training methods have shifted the emphasis from punishment to applying rewards consistently in accordance with behavior modification and educational psychology principles. A step-by-step curriculum, well-selected rewards, and a well-planned schedule of reinforcement have proven to get better results than scolding a puppy with a paper.