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Tips on Giving your Dog or Puppy Obedience Training
By Steven Roberts
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Thinking of getting your first puppy or dog? Have a dog with behavior problems? Our dog often becomes our best friend, so training should be fun and mutually productive. This article has some great advice on obedience training for your dog or puppy. Learning how to provide training obedience to your puppy or beloved dog is crucial to integrate your pet into your home life successfully. Our dog often becomes our best friend, so we want to make the training experience both fun and mutually productive. We all love our dogs. However, dissuading our canine pals from disruptive or destructive behavior can be frustrating when we do not know what we are doing. Improper training techniques can be confusing to our dogs, because they may become confused and uncertain about what we are trying to achieve. Equally important is to remember that you have to learn and understand the psychology of the particular breed of dog you want to buy or already own. Different dogs like to do different things and for different reasons. Therefore, when you decide on what type of puppy or dog you want, the first important step is to get a book about your breed of dog so that you can gain a thorough understanding of any behavior peculiar to that particular breed. The second most important step is to appreciate the fact that your dog will go through several crucial developmental stages. Dog training techniques should be age appropriate, and is best done in stages. Do not try to teach your puppy too much, because you will both end up frustrated. Teach your puppy what it can absorb, because it is just a ball of energy and has a limited attention span. The two main issues to address at this stage of development are potty training and excessive chewing. Patience and appropriate awards for good behavior are essential. As your dog gets older, you can gradually begin to use more age-appropriate training techniques to tackle such issues as barking, jumping up on people, running, and heeling. Again, do not overwhelm the dog by trying too many different things at the same time. Teach it one thing at a time, and when it masters that thing, move on to the next issue. When your dog does something, it does so for a reason. As a dog owner, it is vital that you try to interpret his language and signals to better understand his behavior. When a dog expresses something, it is communicating, so it is to your advantage to unravel the signals. Puppies and dogs are normally very social creatures. They learn a lot from interacting, both with other people and especially with other dogs. Puppies, for example, learn much of their social etiquette from their mother and their other siblings. If a puppy nips another pup, it will be nipped back. This teaches the puppy about appropriate biting behavior. Therefore, it is essential you realize that when you get your puppy, you are the one who has to take the place of the dog's mother and other siblings and train your puppy accordingly. As a dog owner, you must also learn to accept that certain behaviors such as stubbornness or other traits might be inherent to that particular breed. You can still achieve some degree of behavior modification, but it is important to accept that a compromise may be required at some point. If you plan to train your dog yourself, then you must do so regularly and with consistency. Do not try to train your dog in a foul mood. Shouting tends to frighten a dog. They trust and love us unconditionally, so you must not betray that trust. However, your pet does need to know who is in charge, so be a stern friend - but not a dictator. Let your dog have fun and enjoy what it likes doing, because you also have to consider its mental health as well as its physical health. Dogs need an age appropriate diet and regular exercise. They can suffer from as many hang-ups as we do. Many wonderful expert books, videos, and online courses can help you through this process. Take the time to scope out these dog-training materials. Choose the ones you feel not only best suit your needs, but the needs of the dog as well. If you find you cannot take the time to teach your dog obedience training, you should consider taking your dog to a professional obedience school. Even so, this does not let you off the hook, as you must make a commitment to become involved as much as possible. You want your dog to derive the most benefit from this expense and the trainer's expertise, so you should try to learn as much as possible about what the trainer is doing and why. Dogs need to be trained, just like children, so pet owners need to do it right. The better we can train our dogs, the more we can spend with them as friends and beloved family members. Article Source: 1st Rate Articles - http://1stRateArticles.com |
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