Dog Training Tips That Work!

In dog training, the most simple acts often produce the best results. In any dog pack, the alpha sets the rules and the rest follow. Therefore, by establishing yourself as the alpha, you can be sure that your obedience training sessions will be that much more productive. The following is a list of 8 simple things you can do to teach your new puppy or unruly dog that you are the alpha in your pack.

Never feed your dog from your plate while you’re eating. A dog must learn that your are the alpha and that it can only eat when you are finished with your meal.

1. Never allow your dog on the sofa or on your bed. And if your dog sits on your path, gently shove it out of the way with your foot. By setting boundaries, you will instill in your dog that it must obey the alpha.
2. Never allow your dog to chew on your towels, socks, shoes, or clothing. Use bitter apple to discourage these behaviors.
3. NEVER HIT YOUR DOG FOR MISBEHAVING. Instead use the tone of your voice and a collar/leash to teach and make corrections.
4. Never allow a puppy to chew on your fingers. Otherwise, it will become a habit that will be very hard to break when it becomes an adult. Spray you hands and fingers with bitter apple and then allow the dog to proceed. The dog will learn not to bite your fingers without associating any negative thoughts about you as the alpha.
5. Never leave a hyper dog unexercised. Playing ball before you leave for work and after you return can help alleviate your dog’s pent-up energy.
6. Never keep your dog alone in a yard for days at a times. Without proper socialization your dog will become aggressive towards other dogs as well as other humans. A dog needs contact with its own species in order to learn how to behave in a dog pack equally as well as it must learn to behave in a human pack. A dog left alone for long periods of time will believe itself to be the alpha and try to dictate to its master instead of the other way around.
7. Never allow your dog to jump on you or your guests. Its fun when your dog is a puppy, but it isn’t fun when it becomes a 100lb behemoth. Practice with a collar and leash and set up situations where a neighbor rings your doorbell while your dog awaits their entrance. Make a sharp correction and command your dog to “sit” when as your neighbor enters the house. And, of course, don’t forget to praise the dog as soon as it follows your command. Once the dog knows what to do, try the same thing off leash, but this time use a water spray bottle and spray your dogs face with water as punishment for jumping with a stern vocal correction of “NO”. Proceed to praise your dog once again when your dog obeys your command. This way, it will learn to associate praise with correct action.

By following these steps, you will establish yourself as the alpha. And, you will have a head start in training your dog because it will have already learned to respect your authority as its leader.

Dog Training Career: What is Involved?

A dog training career may be just right for you, if you love working with dogs.  Dogs of all ages, from puppies to older dogs, need training, and their owners often don’t know how to train them.  They look for a professional dog trainer to do the job.

If you are thinking of a dog training career, you might want to start by practicing on your own dog.  If you are good at training your dog, you might be good at training other people’s dogs.  But if training your dog leaves you frustrated and drained, then becoming a dog trainer might not be the best career for you.

When you are training dogs, you are actually training the owners more than the dogs, so you need to be good with people to consider a dog training career.  People are not at their best when they are frustrated or embarrassed by their dog’s behavior.  Will you be able to deal with these distraught owners calmly, while at the same time tending to their dogs?  Give this some thought.

Consider volunteering to help out at a dog training class at your local shelter.  You will get a feel for what is involved in a dog training career.  If you are good, the teacher may let you teach a segment of the class.  This will be your trial by fire. If you do a good job, then you can move forward with your training.

You can prepare for a dog training career in several ways.

1. Attend a school specifically for those interested in a dog training career.  There are many schools and seminars available. Be sure to get lots of hands on training.

2. Become an intern or apprentice to a dog trainer in your area.  This way, you can learn dog training on the job.

3. Become a certified dog trainer.  Do a search on the internet for dog training certification programs.

Once you have the proper education in dog training, starting your business should be easy.  Decide if you want to work with individual clients in their homes or offer dog training classes.  It is a good idea to offer a combination of both.  By advertising your dog training classes, people who want individual help training their dogs will hear about you too.  Soon your dog training career will be off to a great start.

Check around in your area for facilities where you can hold the dog training classes.  Often the local humane society will have space for classes, or you could check with dog day care facilities.  In warm weather, you may be able to hold your classes outdoors.

Advertise your services by leaving brochures about your training program with veterinarians, dog supply stores, and pet shelters.  This way, your advertising will not cost you much.

Congratulations!  You have followed the steps above and have a thriving dog training career.  You love dogs and are working with them every day.  For a dog lover and a natural teacher, you have found the ideal business to be in.

Dog Training – How To Stop Possessiveness With Food

Though sometimes would like to believe otherwise, food is a dog’s first priority, so the first step to successful training is to establish yourself as the leader, this can be acheived by showing him that he can only have his food at your discretion and command. Give him his dinner, allow him to eat for a few seconds, then take his bowl away from him. Use an appropriate sound each time you do so, such as “leave” or “stop”, and keep the bowl for a few seconds.Provided he didn’t show any aggression as you removed the bowl, tell him how ‘good boy’,give it back and allow him to continue eating. Repeat this two or three times during each meal for a few days, then once or twice a week for a few weeks.

Some dogs are never possessive with their food, but you may find if your dog came from a large litter, the only way he could obtain his share of the food was to threaten his brothers and sisters. Finding this action acheived the desired result (getting more food),he may well try it with you.If you don’t sort this out very early on, this possessiveness will transfer to other things, such as bones, toys, furniture and so on, perhaps even to other members of the family.

To stop him being aggressive with his food, don’t give him possession of it! By this I mean feed him by hand for a couple of weeks. Prepare his food in the bowl as usual, but don’t put the bowl on the floor for him. Simply feed him a handful at a time. The bowl of food on the floor almost instinctively makes him want to guard it, so if he is not put in this position of needing to guard, he will not bite!

Feeding by hand also helps if your dog is dominant in other areas. It makes him completely reliant on you for the most important thing in his life,his food,and this will reinforce your position of pack leader, as he is only receiving the food from you and not from the bowl. You can also use this period of hand feeding to your benefit by making him perform some minor order from you for some of the food. Get him to sit first before one handful, or to lie down for the next, and so on. Don’t make him run around for the food as this could cause digestive upsets.

You will find that after a couple weeks of this regime, his general attitude over possessions will change. You can then try giving him his food in a bowl again, and, provided there is no sign of aggression, continue to feed him normally.

For dogs that are food possessive, do not give them bones or toys, as they will attempt to guard these in the same way. Once the food possession has been sorted out, you can try introducing a toy, but make sure the dog understands that it is your toy, and he is only allowed to play with it with you, and when you decide the game is to end, you must end up with the toy.

Dog Training: Learn How To Train Your Dog Effectively

One of the few things that dog owners or prospective dog owners think about is whether or not they will need to train their dog. Although training a dog is not absolutely essential unless your dog has a particular problem, a small amount of training to remove bad habits and set boundaries for your dog should be considered. In addition to this, a well trained dog will feel much more secure in your home when it knows its boundaries. Even in the wild, a dog will have some sort of enforced boundaries of behavior by the pack structure and hierarchy that exists. At the end of the day, your dog is part of your ‘pack’.

A very important point to note about dog training is that any form of training should be approached from the perspective of ‘positive reinforcement’. This simply means that you should reward your dog with praise, a treat or even better, both for any positive behavior that she exhibits. Success will come quickly to anybody who praises a dog for good behavior. The same cannot be said for somebody who punishes a dog for NOT exhibiting good behavior.

For example – If you ask your dog to sit and she does, you give her a treat. In the dogs mind sitting when told equals treat. Simple.

Now what if you tell the dog to sit and she doesn’t, and then you punish her? In the dogs mind you have just dished out a random punishment for nothing. This will only serve to confuse your dog and lead her to mistrust you.

Positive reinforcement is the key.

One of the most common mistakes that dog owners make is to inadvertently train their dog……. into bad habits. Typical examples include barking, face licking, jumping up. Let’s look at each of these.

Barking – Most dogs’ bark, that’s a fact. It’s WHEN a dog barks that determines whether it’s normal behavior or a bad habit. If your dog only barks when somebody comes to the door – fine. This is normal territorial behavior. Your dog is warning you – as a member of its pack – that there’s potential danger at the door.

If your dog spends the best part of its waking life barking at just about anything including you, then it’s formed into a bad habit – but one that is easy to cure.

The first mistake that people make is to shout “Quiet” or “Shut up” at their barking dog. The main reason why this will not work is simple. Your dog barks, then you ‘bark’. From your perspective you are shouting at your dog to shut up. From your dogs’ perspective, you are barking along and enjoying the noise.

A more effective method is to wait for a pause in your dogs barking then heap lots of praise and a treat upon your dog. As soon as the barking starts again, ignore your dog, walk off – anything but DO NOT pay your dog any attention. Then, when the barking stops its treat time again. It won’t be long before your dog puts two and two together.

Face Licking – Face licking is an overthrow from your dog’s puppy days. Face licking is a way for a puppy to get its mother to regurgitate food for them. You will often see this in the wild. Also wild dogs will lick the face of a higher member of the pack to express and accept their submissive status in the pack. Unfortunately, because you and your family members are higher in the pack, you get the licks!

At first sight face licking is not a problem but should still be avoided due to health concerns. Never let a dog lick a baby or toddlers face. This is likely to expose the infant to germs that its immune system may not be able to handle. Similarly if your dog has worms or has been investigating other dogs’ faeces or even grooming itself, the last thing you want is for your dog to come and lick your face. Try and discourage this behavior using positive reinforcement.

When your dog approaches your face firmly – but not shouting – say “No!” If the dog doesn’t back off push her away from your face. When the dog first responds to the “No” phrase, it’s time for a treat. Keep this up consistently, and the dog will realize face licking is unacceptable.

Jumping Up – Jumping up may not seem such a bad habit, but if there are young children about it can be quite dangerous. Your dog will not know that jumping on you is o.k. but jumping on the children isn’t. This will just confuse the dog. Try to discourage this behavior by telling the dog “Down!” every time she jumps up. Give her a treat when she first responds and every time after until you just need to use the words.

There are lots of simple ways that you can train your dog. These are just a few. There’s no need to tolerate bad habits in your dog as they can be so easily remedied. Oh, and never pay heed to the phrase “You can’t teach on old dog new tricks”, you can – it’s never too late.