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A Guide
To Successful Obedience Training for Your Dog
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by:
Jon Dunkerley
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By Jon Dunkerley
http://www.web-rover.com
Showing off your dog in front of friends and family is something that I
personally love to do. Having an obedient, happy slab of lab is like
having an obedient happy child. Have you ever been in a supermarket
only to come across a screaming baby and a blushing parent? I know I
have, and my first reaction is to get as far away from the disturbing
scene as possible. I have also been in the undesirable situation of
being in public with an unobedient dog and I can say, I feel the pain
of the frantic parent!
The term, ¡§A happy dog is an obedient dog¡¨ is one that I really
believe holds a lot of merit due to its simplicity. If you have a
relatively well behaved dog, that interacts well with the family, it is
fair to say that rarely will you or anyone else in that family be angry
or even worse abusive towards your pet. On the other hand if your dog
is not obedient to a satisfactory level, and does not interact well
with the family, one can say that members of that family will have a
hard time coping with the pet and this trend can only escalate only
leading to the eventual departure of the pet from the family.
When teaching your dog basic obedience, it is wize to make sure that
you first have an understanding of the art yourself. Like people, dogs
have unique personalities none of which are the same, and it is a good
trainer that will take the time to figure out the dog before trying to
figure out how to best approach introducing basic obedience.
Furthermore, there are many external resources out there for you to
take advantage of in order to help you understand the art of training.
Books, articles, Obedience Instructors, and the internet, are all
viable sources that you should take advantage of when seeking advice,
or just experiences from others in your situation.
Below I have listed my top ten components to keep in mind when working
with your dog. I did not rank them, as they are all very important to
keep in mind as they will only aid you in bonding, understanding, and
interacting positively with your four-legged friend:
- Know what your doing ¡V Before comensing any type of training, do
your research first! To offen, pet owners try to do all the work their
way, get frustrated and take out their frustrations on their pet.
Having an understanding of the methodology behind the many types of
training, will benefit you to know end.
- Consistancy ¡V Being consistent with your approach is very very
important when dealing with your dog in any aspect of life. When
working with your dog try to use the same approach each time. Changing
training methods mid session for example will only confuse your dog
even more than he-she already is. Furthermore, set up training time at
least twice a day, and keep to these times. Training time is important,
the more sessions you set up the more productivity you can expect in
the long run.
- Keep your sessions short ¡V The attention span of a dog is frail at
the best of times, thus it is crutial to keep the sessions short.
Remember keep the sessions short but do not sacrifice content. Rome was
not built in a day.
- Keep training sessions fun ¡V Dogs as do people, like to have fun,
and why shouldn¡¦t they? Training can be fun for you and your pet! Be
lively, treat good behavior, praise your dog to no end, make him feel
like he is the best dog in the world, even if he¡¦s not!
- Never punish your pet for what they don¡¦t know! ¡V To offen, I have
seen people talk to their pet with the understanding that their beloved
dog is a master of the English language, only to punish them when the
desired response is not carried out. This really bothers me because it
shows me that that person would rather bully their pet into submitting
than taking the time to research, develop and implicate an approach to
help the dog learn the desired response to certain words or phrases.
(No Hungmay Kowaisa!( Did you understan that? Well you would if you
researched the Korean languageļ
- Train to your dog¡¦s strength ¡V As stated above every dog has its
own unique personality, therefore we must identify characteristics of
our pets in order to take advantage of them in our training sessions.
If your pet is very lively, take advantage of that! During training
sessions, be lively yourself! Match your dogs enthusiasm, when your
happy, your pet will be happy and your pet will be very happy come
training time.
If your dog has a laid back shy personality, take this into account
when training. Still be lively and upbeat as this will spark the
interest of your dog, however keep in mind that due to his/her
personality, displaying comprehention may take longer due to the shy
nature of your dog. It is really important to make a shy laid back dog
feel super great during training sessions as this can only improve your
chances of continuing successful training.
- Incorperate training into your everyday routine ¡V It can be very
beneficial to perform individual obedience exercises through out the
day. Simply by performing the sit exercise while you brush him, or
having the dog sit while you attach his leash can help to imprint the
sitting position. Keep little things like this in mind as they can only
aid you and your pet.
- Be patient ¡V Remember you are trying to teach your dog! Your dog is
a non-english speaking individual, lacking house manners, behavioral
skills, curticy, do I need to continue??
Take your time, play to your dog¡¦s strength, praise, respect, keep
sessions short and compact, and have fun!
- Empithize with your dog ¡V The best example I can think of for this
suggestion, is going to a foreign country and trying to comprehend what
people are saying. Somebody will come up to you and start rambling on
in a foreign tongue and you have no clue what they are saying. Your dog
is in the same predicament with you. When you start training your dog,
he-she has no clue on earth what you are saying. How is he-she supposed
to respond if he-she doesn¡¦t know what you want? As in the above
example, the more time you spend in the foreign country, the more
familiar you become with the language. You can apply the same principle
with your dog. More training leads to more comprehention, leading to
the end result, an obedient dog.
- Reward good bahavior ¡V The best way to reinforce good behavior is to
reward it. Others may disagree with this statement, but through my
experience with my own dog and others around me, I have found that
rewarding good behavior can only aid in maintaining that behavior. In
my opinion, the best way of rewarding good behavior is through offering
toys or treats. Praise is also worthy but would you rather have an
icecream cone, or a good handshakeļ I personally love icecream and
would pick that over a handshake anyday. Your dog is driven by his
belly in most cases, and you can achieve astonishing success by baiting
your dog with the occasional russle of the treat bag
About the author:
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