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Tips for a Well Behaved Dog
- Start training your puppy at an early age. While old dogs can be taught new tricks, what's learned earliest, is often learned quickest and easiest. Also, the older the dog, the more bad habits he may need to unlearn.
- Train your dog gently and humanely. Use positive rewards and motivation methods. Rewards should be the rule and reprimands should be the rare exception. Keep obedience sessions lively so that the training process is enjoyable for all parties. Training your dog should not be drudgery.
- Does your dog listen to you and obey you at home? Does he treat you like a human gymnasium when you're sitting on the furniture? Does he beg at the table? Jump up on visitors? Demand your attention by annoying you to death? Ignore your commands?
- How well your dog responds to you at home affects his behavior outside of the home. If your dog doesn't respond reliably to commands at home (where distractions are relatively minimal), he certainly won't respond to you properly when you are outdoors and he's tempted by other dogs, pigeons, passersby, sidewalk food scraps, etc.
- Avoid giving your dog commands that he cannot obey. Each time you give a command that is neither complied nor enforced, your dog learns that commands are optional
- One command should equal one response. Give your dog a command, say it once (twice max!), and then gently enforce it. Repeating commands tunes your dog out (as does nagging) and teaches your dog that the first several commands are a bluff. For instance, telling your dog to sit, sit, sit, sit is neither an efficient nor effective way to issue commands. Simply give your dog a single command, gently place or lure him into it, and give him praise or reward.
- Avoid giving your dog combined commands which are incompatible. Combined commands such as sit - down can confuse your dog. Use either sit or down.
- When giving your dog a command, avoid using a loud voice. Even if your dog is especially independent/unresponsive, your tone of voice when issuing an obedience command should be calm and authoritative, rather than harsh or loud.
- Whenever possible, use your dog's name positively, rather than using it associated to reprimands, warnings or punishment. Your dog should trust that when he hears his name good things happen. His name should always be a word he responds to with enthusiasm, never hesitancy or fear.
- Correct or prevent the unwanted behavior. Don't punish but rather try to teach him. Do not reprimand or get even with him. After-the-fact discipline does NOT work. If you're taking a "whip 'em into shape" approach, you'll undermine your relationship with him. Also, you'll be missing out on all the fun that a motivational training approach can offer.
- When training your dog, timing is everything. Take the following example: You've prepared a platter of food for a small dinner party and it is sitting on a small table in the dining room. Your dog walks into the room and smells the food. He air-sniffs, then eyes the food, and is poised to jump up. This is the best, easiest and most effective time to correct your dog's behavior - while he's thinking about jumping up to get the food. If he has already eaten the food and is resting comfortably in his bed, correcting him at this point is useless. He cannot associate something that occurred earlier with a correction that he is receiving at the present time.
- Often, dog owners inadvertently reinforce their dogs' misbehavior by giving them lots of attention (negative attention) when they misbehave. Needless to say, if your dog receives lots of attention and handling when he jumps up on you, that behavior is being reinforced, and is therefore likely to be repeated.
- Keep a lid on your anger. Never train your dog when you're feeling grouchy or impatient. Earning your dog's respect is never accomplished by yelling, hitting, or handling your dog in a harsh manner. Moreover, studies have shown that fear and stress inhibit the learning process.
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