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Ten
Thoughts to a Better Relationship With Your Dog
Your
dog will never take responsibility for getting trained.
You must take the responsibility for educating your dog.
This means that you must also take the responsibility of
learning to communicate with your dog. Without communication
there can be no educating.
In the canine world there are no such things as
equals. You will either lead or follow. A dog’s
reasoning ability is similar to a two year old child. A
two year old child does not make an effective leader. You
must be the leader.
Every time you interact with your dog, he is learning
something. If you are not teaching him the right
behavior, he is learning the wrong behavior.
Negative
attention is still attention. If the only way
your dog can get your attention is by being bad, you will
train him to act bad for attention. Remember to always
reward your dog for good behavior. Pay attention when he
is doing something right and let him know you like it.
The consistency of your dog’s behavior, good
or bad, will mirror the consistency of your training.
If you train your dog repeating the command ten times,
you can expect the dog to respond 10% of the time.
A dog’s concept of right and wrong is very
different from ours. Do not expect the dog to
know what you may think is right or wrong.
If you are correcting the dog, are you certain
the dog understands why it is being corrected?
Have you educated and then generalized the concept?
Nature has no form of punishment, only consequences.
If you can stop thinking punishment and focus on what the
dog perceives as the consequences of his actions, you will
make more head way in any situation.
If you are reacting to a behavior of the dogs,
it is the dog that is training you. You must decide
what behavior you want and educate the dog to that behavior.
You are your dog’s primary role model.
If you want quiet, calm behavior, you must role model quiet,
calm behavior.
