Listed here are some basic principles that each one dog owners have to learn and follow:
1. Be consistent. A behavior is either acceptable or it’s not. It will probably’t be acceptable on alternate Tuesdays while you’re within the mood. For instance, it may’t be OK to permit your dog to leap throughout you on the weekends while you’re in casual clothes, but not throughout the week while you’re dressed for work. That is an obvious one, although you would be amazed how many individuals I’ve met who do exactly that.
Here’s one which’s less obvious. It will probably’t be OK to your dog to chew fabric toys but to not chew “inappropriate” fabric items. In other words, should you give your dog an old sock and say, “Here, chew this,” do not be surprised when she eats your shirt. Consistency is a bit easier for singles or couples, and hardest for families. The more individuals who interact with the dog, the greater the likelihood of inconsistency. I strongly recommend that families conduct a couple of meetings to debate and agree upon what will likely be universally unacceptable behavior on the a part of the dog.
Everyone needs to obviously understand what the principles will likely be for a training program to be most successful. That being said, we live in the actual world and I recognize how difficult consistency on the a part of a six-year-old child will likely be. Parents of younger children might want to practice a good amount of prevention and understand that the dog’s training process could also be somewhat bit harder and prolonged.
2. Be consistent. Yes, I do know I already said this, but consistency also extends to obedience commands. When you want your dog to learn to hearken to obedience commands the primary time they’re given, you should be prepared to properly teach your dog to obey them the primary time. That is most effectively completed if the initial foundation-level obedience you teach across the house is completed off leash.
I actually have sometimes run into problems when discussing how vital it’s for dogs to obey commands consistently. In my view, that is an area where attitudes have gone downhill within the last 30 years. A long time ago the concept a dog needed to obey commands the primary time they got wouldn’t have drawn comment. Today, there are a lot of owners who’re uncomfortable with the concept their dog must be trained to reply so predictably.
I’ve had owners object, based on the concept they didn’t want their dogs “to grow to be robots.” It is crucial for these owners to know that, to begin with, if training is primarily done with compassion and reward this can not occur; and second of all, you may not care in case your dog listens on the primary command until the very first time she runs out into the road. Then, as cars are barreling toward her, you’ll pray she listens on the primary command, because you might never get a second one.
The specifics of teach foundation-level obedience off leash will be present in Chapter 7 of this book. Nevertheless, the principles of consistency really have to be understood here.
3. Understand why behaviors happen and take care of problems by coping with the cause. When owners learn to do that, they’ll not only be reacting to what are sometimes symptoms of an underlying problem.
4. Learn basic training techniques after which follow rules one and two. All owners need to know the principles of prevention, maintenance, redirection, reward and correction. They usually need to make use of them consistently. Now that you’ve an understanding of among the challenges, let’s discuss somewhat bit about behavior, so that everybody will be clear what terms similar to “prevention,” “maintenance,” “redirection” and “reward” really mean. When you understand how a dog learns, we are able to get on to the business of coaching.
