May 06 2009
Solve All Your Dog Training Issues By Utilising Modern Positive Reinforcement Dog Training
A common mistake that many people make when training their dogs, whether house training, obedience training, or teaching them entertaining tricks, is using various forms of punishment when the animal doesn’t do what they want. Misinformed dog owners often use methods such as hiting the dog with a stick or locking them up on their own for ages.
This is very detrimental to the pet-owner relationship, and to the dog’s emotional wellbeing. If you insist on utilising these sorts of punishment whilst training, your dog will become fearful of you leading to an unbalanced animal. If you happen to have gotten your dog from a shelter it can take a while to build up the required level of trust as they have often sadly been abused.
Not only is punishment damaging to your relationship and your pet’s emotional health, it’s not effective either. More often than not, punishing your dog leads to defensive, aggressive behaviors. Once present, these types of behaviors will be hard to change. The quickest way to seeing the results you want is through positive reinforcement.
Instead of punishing your dog for unwanted behaviors, reward them for good behaviors. This technique for training your dog works just great and is very effective in all types of situation. As an example, if your dog has been to the toilet on your carpet, be firm with it and say “no”, then take it straight outside or put it on a puppy pad. Make sure that you watch your dog closely. When you see your dog using the correct location for its toilet business make sure you give then loads of praise.
It won’t take long for your dog to make the connection between the bad behavior and your disapproval, and the good behavior and your praise. Pack leader status will be given to you by dogs and they just love to make us humans happy. During your training sessions you will find that this natural desire to please will work in your favour.
The same principle applies to any situation, be it unnecessary barking, chewing on furniture or objects, jumping on or licking people, or any other of a host of annoying and potentially dangerous habits. At all times you have to be prepared to remain calm, consistent and patient. Your efforts will pay off quickly
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