Posts Tagged ‘Dog Training’

Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing they all have in common is the love of digging. From burying bones to making cool dens for shelter, dogs in yards will inevitably turn to this favorite past time.

This natural behavior can wreak havoc on your yard and garden if it goes unchecked. What is the best way to curb the digging impulse?

Why does your dog dig? Does he just like the action and feeling or is there another reason lurking underneath? Figuring out why your dog is engaging in this undesirable behavior is the first step in correcting it.

Some dogs do enjoy the act of digging, but others use it to communicate with you. They may be crying out for attention or more exercise. They may need a shelter to stay warm or cool. They may be burying food. If you’ve recently put down fertilizer or dug in your garden, your dog may be responding to the scents.

Knowing the reason behind the digging can help you stop the behavior. For instance, if it is due to boredom or lack of attention, you can start to offer your dog more play time with you. Dog obedience training can go a long way in discouraging the behaviour.

If the problem persists, try one of the following:

1. Find the spots your dog usually digs and bury a balloon that has been inflated. If your dog digs, he’ll pop the balloon. This unpleasant reaction to his digging can deter him from continuing.

2. Along the same lines, you can mix in his feces when you refill a hole he’s dug. Dogs will often return to the same spots, and when he discovers the feces, he’ll be turned off digging.

3. Try burying some chicken wire just below the surface where your dog likes to dig. When your dog pits the wire with his paws, he’ll hate the sensation and stop digging.

4. When you catch your dog digging, give him a spray from a water bottle or hose. They hate this (but it is not harmful). They will learn to associate the punishment with the crime. Only do this when you catch him digging or he will not connect the behavior with the consequence.

You love your pet; you don’t have to love his bad habits too. If digging is a problem, take immediate steps to correct your dog’s behavior. He’ll be happy, and your yard will thank you. As with puppy training, education will take hold eventually and your dog will be able to correct bad behaviour.

Clicker Training – A Great Training Technique

You want to teach your dog acceptable behavior in a gentle, humane way. Many people have found success with the clicker method.

Operant conditioning is the repetition of a behavior when a reward is given. This is the premise behind clicker training. How does it work?

You hold a small plastic box in your hand. It has a metal strip which produces a clicking sound when pressed.

When you first start click training, you pair the click with a reward, such as a dog biscuit. When the dog performs a command well, you click immediately and offer the treat.

The dog learns to associate the click with the behavior and the click with the treat, which makes it more likely that he’ll repeat it. Soon, just the click will be enough, and eventually, it can be phased out altogether.

You can often train dogs with clickers faster and more effectively than with other means. Clicking is immediate, so your dog quickly learns that his behavior is producing the treat. This encourages repetition of the desired behaviors.

Dogs want to make you happy, and performing commands is a great way for them to do this. And get a treat in the process. The clicker is a great training tool for encouraging good behavior.

Get the information you need to take effective care of your pet with dog training collar.

Technorati Tags: dog obedience training, Dog Training, puppy training

Now that you have brought your new dog home it is time to start the housebreaking. One that can only lead to confusion for the dog later on is giving your new dog a little time to get to know the family and the house before laying down the law. Your dog will be confused if you have allowed it to run free with no discipline, then all of a sudden expect it to be well-behaved.

It Is Never Too Late

If you have already allowed your dog to run free without rules you can still correct the situation. Unlike a popular belief out there, it is never too late to start dog training with a dog. Whether your puppy is young or old you can still include housebreaking into his/her daily routine. Whether your problem is dog chewing, dog biting or dog growling, you need to focus on the unwanted behavior that is your highest concern. After housebreaking them on the first behavior, then you can move on to the next.

In order to make sure that your pet never becomes one of those aggressive dogs you always hear about on the news, you have to start housebreaking as soon as possible. If your biggest problem at the moment, especially if you have a puppy, is where the dog is and is not allowed to go potty then you will need to start with that.

Housebreaking Tips

* Restrict food and water to the appropriate meal times
* Keep peed pads in one area
* You should praise your pet when it displays good behavior
* Never strike or slap the dog if it misses the pee pad
* Take the puppy to the pee pad within fifteen to twenty minutes of drinking or eating

Many people will leave the food and water out all the time for their dog. While this is an okay routine for older dogs that can hold their bladder, it is not advisable for puppies. Young pups are not able to hold their bladder for very long, even if they wanted to. This will cause more accidents in the house that are not the fault of the puppy. So leaving food and water out all of the time is counterproductive to your goals in housebreaking.

Place the pee pad in the spot of the home where your puppy goes if he continues to miss the pee pad. Housebreaking at this stage just simply means that you are getting the puppy adjusted to going to the bathroom on top of the pad. Once your pet is used to this, you may progress the housebreaking by moving the ‘pee pad’ a small distance every day until it is eventually located where you want it.

Although the procedure for housebreaking might appear to be too time-consuming, it is very crucial. You don’t want your dog using the bathroom everywhere. Your puppy can get discouraged if the housebreaking process is not easy to learn. Seek outside help in puppy training if need be. No matter who is in charge of doing it, just know that housebreaking takes time.

Technorati Tags: aggressive dogs, dog biting, dog breeds, dog chewing, dog growling, dog obedience, dog obedience training, Dog Training, dog training classes, housebreaking

Though dog-human interaction goes back thousands of years, communication between the two is still sometimes rough. The human half of the pair is usually the smarter party, but watching the usual training sessions one can have legitimate reason to wonder.

Dogs understand and respond at roughly the mental level of a human two-year-old, but there the similarity ends. Their senses operate differently – their color vision has a different response pattern to reds and greens, for example, and obviously their noses are infinitely more sensitive – and their minds process information differently as well. Anyone training dogs has to take this into account in order to avoid human frustration and canine misbehavior.

Dogs are pack animals by nature. Descendant from wolves – where even the ‘lone wolf’ is an anomaly – they’re social and function best with active interplay and within a strict hierarchy.

So, set aside half-an-hour per day, an hour would be better, for at least the first few months of training. Start your training as young as possible. Some puppies can be started as early as four weeks old.

Elimination (‘potty’) training details we leave for elsewhere, but all training follows similar guidelines.

The sooner you establish your dominance, the fewer problems you will have to correct. Dogs have a natural hiearchy- there are alpha dogs, beta dogs, and the bottom dog is the omega. For a sane household, and a well-adjusted dog, the human (whether male or female) must always be the alpha male of the pack.

Each dog or dog breed will make it easier or more difficult. Like humans, some are simply more assertive than others. The most important training aid is your attitude, followed by collars, leashes and other training aids. Remember, you are the boss, not the dog.

That guideline doesn’t imply you must enforce your dominance with physical force. Sometimes, used appropriately, that will be necessary. Usually, simply being firm and willing to wait for compliance will be enough.

For many, placing them on their backs when young and placing a firm hand in the middle of the chest until they lower their paws – a sign of submission – will be enough. With some, reinforcing this by putting your face close to theirs, emulating dominant dog behavior, can help.

Keep a short leash to restrain the dog’s natural tendency to roam. Allow plenty of time for free running behavior, essential to dog health, but that’s before or after training, not during. At least, not at first.

Start simply by choosing short, clear commands that sound distinctly different: sit, stay, down, come. Use a firm, but not harsh voice. You’re in charge, but not angry. Avoid double-word commands like ‘sit down’ or ‘stay down’. These sound too much alike and quickly confuse the dog.

Each verbal command should utilize the same look, tone and gesture. Eventually these can separate, but at first it’s essential to provide the simplest, most consistent form of communication.

Just like two-year old humans, dogs have limited capacity for grasping the subtleties of language. Assist their understanding by rigid consistency. Don’t use a single command word to mean more than one thing. ”Down’ needs to mean only one thing, you must choose if it means ‘don’t jump on me’ or ‘lay down on your belly’.

Be clear, be patient and be committed and the result will be a dog who trusts and listens to you. And that makes it worth the effort. Find more on dog training at Luvurdog.com/dogtraining

Technorati Tags: Dog Training, dogs, obedience training, potty training