By Moses Wright
…. continuation of part II of this article:
There are 2 main approaches when it comes to correcting your dog’s undesirable behaviors. The first approach is the “Direct Approach”. It simply requires you to reprimand your dog on the spot whenever he misbehaves – chewing, barking, digging and biting. This is a more tangible and straight forward approach to training your dog and is easy to understand for most trainers.
The second one is the “Endurance Approach” as it’ll require you to ignore your dog when he misbehaves. Using the cause and effect to your advantage, this approach requires you to ignore the dog, especially when he behaves in a certain manner to seek attention.
This method works best by giving your dog attention whenever he is behaving. The rationale for this is that dogs desire attention and will be encouraged by attention. Unlike man, dogs do not know how to differentiate between positive and negative attention. They see things in a simple way. Whenever an action gets attention and a reaction from you, you will find that your dog will repeat the action again – cause and effect.
Sorry to say, most dog owners tend to give negative attention to our dogs. For example: Do you let him out of his crate when he groans or do you give him more attention when he jumps onto you excitedly whenever you comes home? These are considered to be giving him negative attention, and only seek to motivate your dog to continue with his bad behavior.
Luckily, the opposite is true if you can learn to give your dog attention when he behaves well. The moment your dog sees that good behavior brings about attention, he will want to continue repeating the positive actions.
What you should do is to focus your attention on your dog only when he is behaving; praise him or give him a treat, let him know that he’s getting the attention. If this technique is used correctly, he’ll be a well-behaved dog for a long time to come.
4. Training Session – You should be in a calm and correct frame of mind when training your dog. Don’t train your dog when you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs or if you’ve had a bad day and not in the best of moods.
It’s recommended to locate and train at a place where there is little distraction around him so that he can concentrate on training. You should take it slowly when you first begin training, this is especially true for young pups. You should not train a young puppy continuously for more than five minutes and limit the training session for older dogs to less than fifteen minutes. They will not have the mental stamina to concentrate on training. It’s recommended to pause for short breaks in between training session.
Whenever possible, you should plan the training session to your benefit. One of the best time to start training your dog is before meal time when he is hungry; he will be mentally more alert and response better to treat rewards.
Training your dog is not a difficult task: once you get the hang of it, the rest will follow naturally. Every dog owner has the right to own, live and enjoy the company of an obedience dog – Start to train your dog today.
About The Author
Moses Wright is a an experience dog lover with 3 beautiful dogs. He created a web site to help fellow dog owners stop their dog behavior problems. You can get a free copy of his book filled with easy-to-use yet effective tips here: http://www.dogsobediencetraining.com/dogger_enews.htm
Leave a Reply