Are you having problems with your dog behaving badly? Don’t put it off any longer. It’s time to start some consistent obedience training for your dog. This means you need to be persistent and consistent with your training. However, training should always be fun for your dog or it will quickly get bored!
The Basic Needs of A Dog
With power comes great responsibility. If you don’t provide your dog’s basic needs, don’t be surprised if your dog’s behavior continues to stress you out. What are the basic needs? Here are the main ones:
- water and food
- regular daily exercise
- company and social interaction
- an environment which stimulates him.
The main principle in dog training is to adopt positive and negative reinforcement. When your dog engages in a behavior that is wanted, you should reward him with a treat or affection. It’s very important that the reward comes immediately after the desired behavior or the dog will not connect the two thing.
It’s best to focus on positive reinforcement for desired behaviors rather than negative reinforcement for unwanted behaviors. This has been found to be a more productive way of training.
Physical punishment is not an effective or humane way to train dogs and will only lead to a fearful and neurotic dog. You can say a firm “No” in a growling tone of voice to stop him engaging in an unwanted behavior. Perhaps most effective is to ignore your dog when he misbehaves. Dogs crave attention and being ignored is negative reinforcement enough.
You should learn to see your dog as a dog, not a human being. It will help you to do this if you study dog communication and the dynamics of a dog pack. You should study what their body language means: the position of the tail, the mouth positions, the ear position and the sounds they make.
Another important aspect of training is to position yourself as the pack leader. If your dog is pack leader, you will be fighting a losing battle to get him to behave as you want. Why would he take notice of one of his pack member? Some advice on setting yourself up as alpha dog:
-eat a a little snack in front of your dog just before you feed him. The pack leader always eats before the pack members.
-don’t allow him to onto the bed or sofa. The alpha dog sleeps on higher ground.
-make sure you go through doors before your dog.
This is an introduction to some important points in dog obedience training. I recommend you look into the most systematic of training methods: clicker training for dogs.