Train Any Dog With These Great Hints
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Training a dog to act the way that is desirable and in a way that is manageable, safe, and fun for the owner should be the end goals of dog training. Using the information in the following reading will allow a person to achieve these goals for training.
Listen to what your dog is trying to tell you. They are very smart animals and they know more than you think that they do. If he is acting in an uncomfortable manner when approaching other animals, do not try to make him interact with them. There is a good chance that problems will occur.
It’s easy to let your dog run free when you bring him home for those first few weeks, only to want to later correct behaviors when they aren’t adorable anymore. Avoid communication breakdown by starting your training schedule immediately with your new dog, so he has the right idea from the start.
To get your dog to crawl on command, have him start in a lying position. If you are tall enough, or your dog is small enough, place your leg, heel on the floor, knee up, in front of him. Take a treat and lead him underneath your leg. If your dog cannot fit under your leg, find another low threshold, like a chair, that he can crawl under. This makes him have to scoot forward to get the treat and will reduce his urge to stand up to follow your hand.
Be aware that you are not going to have a perfectly trained dog overnight. Changing behaviors is a lengthy process that will involve a lot of successes and a lot of setbacks. If you are not training from a puppy, the process can take even longer as your dog will need to both unlearn bad behaviors and learn new ones. Be patient and you’ll start to see results.
You should call your pet by name at least 10 times a day. You can practice using their name when you give them treats and food. This will help them to get used to their name. Don’t punish your pet at anytime for coming to you when you call their name.
When training your dog, you should never punish it for something it did wrong, way after it occurred. If you do not punish your dog immediately after a wrong deed, then you should not punish him at all. The reason is because your dog will be confused and think you are punishing it for doing something else. This is why you must punish your dog while it is in the act of performing the wrong deed or immediately afterwards.
Training your dog to walk on lead takes time. The idea is to have your dog walk obediently beside you without straining, tugging, and pulling from side to side. Correct your dog’s movement with short snaps of the lead that pull sharply and abruptly back against his momentum. He will stop pulling and walk complacently for a time beside you. During this time loosen the lead but when he pulls again snap the lead again.
Your dog can be trained now that you have the know how to do so. With the right information the job can be done the right way and some fun can also be had with your dog along the way. Now that you have the knowledge you simply need to apply it.