Obedience Training for Your Dog – Who’s the Leader of the Pack?

One of life’s genuine joys is the companionship of a dog. However, if your dog exhibits major behavior problems, that joy may be compromised. Destroying household items, piddling on the carpet, excessive barking, aggression, and other unacceptable behaviors can usually be eliminated through effective obedience training.

Dogs are most content when they know their place in the “pecking order” of the pack.

When your dog believes that you are not a very strong leader, he will most likely take over the role of “alpha dog”. His bad behavior will only get worse since, as the leader of the pack, he will assume that he can do anything he wants, paying little attention to your commands.

Until you establish yourself as the alpha member of the pack your efforts to teach proper behavior to your pooch are destined to fail. By providing high quality obedience training you will teach your dog that you are the leader and that he must follow comply with your wishes.

When you begin obedience training try to make the activity fun for your dog. Be sure to reward your dog when he does well. Rewards can take the form of tasty treats, petting, giving him a favorite toy or vigorous praise.

Never punish your dog when conducting obedience training. If he associates obedience training sessions with punishment he will do everything he can to avoid it. When you need to correct a behavior problem, try to make it a penalty instead of a punishment. A penalty can be anything from a “time out” (stopping an activity that he enjoys), a quick tug on his leash, or simply ignoring him for a few moments.

Remember that rewards are usually much more effective than penalties. Try to discover what your dog really enjoys and use it as positive reinforcement when training. The old belief that you can use either a carrot or a stick to train an animal should be entirely forgotten. Instead, try of use a variety of “carrots” to convince your dog that obedience is a good thing, and just throw away the stick.

If you are not sure about specific training techniques you may benefit from studying the tactics used by professional dog trainers. There are several terrific training courses and guide books available online that you may want to consider to help you in your quest for the obedient dog.

Dog Obedience Training – Are You the Leader of the Pack?

The companionship of a dog can truly be one of life’s under appreciated joys. However, that joy can be seriously diminished if your dog exhibits excessive behavior problems. Aggression, inappropriate barking, jumping up on you or visitors, destroying household items and other unacceptable behavior can usually be eliminated through effective obedience training.

Since dogs are, by nature, pack animals, the are most content when they are assured of their place in the social hierarchy.

If the dog’s perception is that you are not a strong leader, he will most likely assume the role of “alpha” dog. Bad behavior will worsen since, as the pack leader, he will believe that he can do as he pleases without regard to your wishes.

Unless you impress upon your dog that you are the “alpha dog”, your efforts to teach appropriate behavior will most likely fail. However, effective obedience training will teach your pooch that YOU are the leader of the pack and that he is expected to comply with your wishes.

When you begin obedience training try to make the activity fun for your dog. Be sure to reward your dog when follows your commands. Rewards can take the form of yummy treats, petting, giving him a favorite toy to play with or vigorous praise.

Never punish your dog when conducting obedience training. If he associates obedience training sessions with punishment he will do everything he can to avoid it. When you need to correct a behavior problem, try to make it a penalty instead of a punishment. A penalty can be anything from a “time out” (stopping an activity that he enjoys), a quick tug on his leash, or simply ignoring him for a few moments.

Remember that rewards are usually much more effective than penalties. Try to discover what your dog really enjoys and use it as positive reinforcement when training. The old belief that you can use either a carrot or a stick to train an animal should be entirely forgotten. Instead, try of use a variety of “carrots” to convince your dog that obedience is a good thing, and just throw away the stick.

If you are not sure about specific training techniques you may benefit from studying the tactics used by professional dog trainers. There are several terrific training courses and guide books available online that you may want to consider to help you in your quest for the obedient dog.

Dog Training Basics

Dog Training

Though dog-human interaction goes back thousands of years, communication between the two is still sometimes rough. The human half of the pair is usually the smarter party, but watching the usual training sessions one can have legitimate reason to wonder.

Dogs understand and respond at roughly the mental level of a human two-year-old, but there the similarity ends. Their senses operate differently – their color vision has a different response pattern to reds and greens, for example, and obviously their noses are infinitely more sensitive – and their minds process information differently as well. Anyone training dogs has to take this into account in order to avoid human frustration and canine misbehavior.

Dogs are by nature pack animals. Descendant from wolves – where even the ‘lone wolf’ is an anomaly – they’re social and function best with active interplay and within a strict hierarchy.

So, set aside half-an-hour per day, an hour would be better, for at least the first few months of training. Start training your dog as soon as possible. Some puppies can be started as early as four weeks old.

Elimination (‘potty’) training details we leave for elsewhere, but all training follows similar guidelines.

Establish your dominance with your dog as soon as possible. Dogs have a hierarchy – there are alpha dogs, beta dogs, and on down to the omega. For a sane household, and a well-adjusted dog, the human (whether male or female) must always be the alpha male of the pack.

This will be easier or more difficult depending on breed and even with individual dogs. Like humans, some are simply more assertive than others. The most important training aid is your attitude, followed by collars, leashes and other training aids. You are the “alpha dog” in your house, not your dog.

You do not have to enforce your dominance with physical force. Sometimes, used appropriately, that will be necessary. Usually, simply being firm and willing to wait for compliance will be enough.

For many, placing them on their backs when young and placing a firm hand in the middle of the chest until they lower their paws – a sign of submission – will be enough. With some, reinforcing this by putting your face close to theirs, emulating dominant dog behavior, can help.

Start on a short leash to restrain the dog’s natural tendency to run and scamper. Allow plenty of time for free running behavior, essential to dog health, but that’s before or after training, not during. At least, not at first.

Start simply by choosing short, clear commands that sound distinctly different: sit, stay, down, come. Use a firm, but not harsh voice. You’re in charge, but not angry. Avoid double-word commands like ‘sit down’ or ‘stay down’. This sounds too much alike and may confuse your dog.

Be consitent with each verbal command by using the same tone, look and hand gesture. Eventually these can separate, but at first it’s essential to provide the simplest, most consistent form of communication.

Just like two-year old humans, dogs have limited capacity for grasping the subtleties of language. Assist their understanding by rigid consistency. Don’t use a single command word to mean more than one thing. ‘Down’ can mean ‘don’t jump on me or anyone else’, or it can mean ‘get on your stomach’, but it has to mean one thing only.

Be clear, be patient and be committed and the result will be a dog who trusts and listens to you. And that makes it worth the effort. Find more on dog training at Luvurdog.com/dogtraining

Adopting an Older Golden Retriever

Many a person longs to own a beautiful Golden Retriever but understandably has second thoughts when they consider how lively a puppy is. Perhaps you are one of these people? Well the answer might well lie in adopting a more mature Golden, one who will easily adapt to your family and lifestyle, and one that will not be as disruptive as a puppy.

Where do you find an older Golden. Well your first stop should be your nearest breeder because strange as it may seem they often do have older dogs for sale. It may be a retired show dog, or a dog which has produced several litters and will not be needed again. There is a whole host of reasons why they might have a mature dog they wish to find a home for, so, give them a call and enquire.

When your mature Goldie comes to you they will already have been house trained, and so adjusting to your particular family lifestyle will be a lot easier. It won’t be easy, just easier, and you must expect a period of re-adjustment during which you will need to shower him or her with plenty of tender love and affection, something which, believe you me, it will not be hard to do.

Before actually making that decision to adopt a Golden,do give the matter some careful thought. Meet the dog first, and find out as much as you can about him or her. Find out their eating habits, and whether or not they get on with children, and old people, and do they enjoy going for walks in the country or in the town and so on. Ask if you can take them out for a walk, and make sure that you introduce him to the other members of your family, so that they too are happy about the decision.

If you had a guest staying with you in your home you would of course take some time to show them where everything is, where the bedroom is and the bathroom and so on, and it is just them same when you introduce an older dog into your family. Allow some time in your busy schedule to ease them in to your home and routine, and this will pay dividends in the long run.

You should always give your new Golden Retriever at least a month or so to get used to his new environment, before you start his new obedience training. Even though your new dog may have some prior obedience training, you should still enroll him in a new class. This way, he can brush up on training and you can work with him to help him understand. Once you have finished training, he’ll understand your commands better and you and him will get along just fine.

To finish with let me just say that, as with everything in life, their are for’s and against’s about owning a mature dog. On one hand they may have some medical conditions, and your initial enquiries should include questions about this. But on the other hand it can be so much easier introducing a mature dog into a busy family life, over introducing a rather demanding puppy.

How To Train Your Dog To Play Fetch

So you’re the proud owner of a dog and you love him to death. Now you want to play with him in order to strengthen the bond between you two. What better way than to play fetch with your dog?

Some dogs know instinctively how to play fetch. Other dogs need to be taught. Luckily, dog training for playing fetch is a fairly simple process. You need to stick to a few simple guidelines for a couple of weeks. The three simple guidelines are listed below.

1. Your dog needs to pay attention to a ball that you want him to fetch. After all, if he’s not paying attention, he’ll never chase after it. In order to teach your doggy to become interested in a ball, praise him whenever he sniffs it or pays attention to it in any way. The objective is to teach your dog he will get a reward every time he follows the ball.

2. Once your dog has learned to pay attention to the ball, he must learn to pick it up in his mouth. It’s possible that he will do this all by himself. In this case, you simple need to praise him and feed him a dog treat. If he doesn’t pick up the ball on his own initiative, you can make the ball more enticing by smearing some peanut butter on it. Keep this up long enough and your dog will eventually learn to pick up the ball.

3. After your dog knows how to follow a ball and pick it up, it’s time that he learns he needs to take it back to you and drop it. You can do this by throwing the ball ten feet away until your dog follows it and then picks it up. Now you call him and show him a dog treat in your hand. This will make him run back to you with the ball still in his mouth. He will probably drop the ball in order to make place for the dog treat.

After you have gone through these simple steps, you are ready for a few small scale experiments. Throw the ball a short distance and say “Fetch!”. If the dog doesn’t go after the ball, you should try throwing it closer, or handing it to him again. When he does it correctly, make sure to treat and praise him.

If you repeat this whole process often enough, your dog will learn to play fetch for sure. It’s usually a matter of a few weeks. After a few weeks, your dog will have comprehended the whole game of playing fetch. From hereon, playing fetch becomes its own reward. You can still tell him is a good boy, but you won’t have to stock up on dog treats anymore. You can save those to teach him another game in the future.

Owning a dog is a great thing. Dogs are loyal pets that will love you unconditionally. It’s definitely worth investing your time and energy to get the two of you closer together. Playing fetch is a great way of doing this. So stick to the training, and before you know it your doggy and you will be having a ball!

Advanced Obedience Training

To apply the word “advanced” in conjunction with obedience training might lead one to wonder how obedience can be divided. A dog is either obedient or he’s not, right? However, there are higher levels of obedience training just as there are higher levels of training to be achieved in school and education.

A child does not start school in the sixth grade; she has to start in pre-school or kindergarten. There, she is taught how to get along with others her own age, how to play, how to fit in, how to share, and perhaps most importantly, how to learn. For dogs, basic obedience training accomplishes very much the same as pre-school or kindergarten does for the child.

Most families are very happy when their dog learns to eat indoors and use the bathroom outdoors, while other dog owners are not content until their dog can really “fit in” with the family.

In order to fit in, however, the dog must respond to commands so that he can be well controlled. The five commands necessary for control are “Come”, “Stay”, “Sit”, “Heel”, and “Down”. For the dog to be considered obedient, he must respond to each of those commands each time they are given by his family.

When a dog receives training in basic obedience, he becomes more of a joy to live with. The owner has the ability to communicate with his dog while the dog attains the ability to comprehend some words of the English language. Basic training, therefore, is considered the training essential for good behavior.

However, the dog is capable of learning more than just basic obedience commands, just as the graduate from elementary school has the ability to learn more than just simple writing, reading, and basic arithmetic. The similarity between a child and a dog doesn’t stop there, either. When a child goes to high school, he finds the going just a bit tougher than it was in grade school. He must work a little harder, and so does the canine that goes on into advanced obedience training.

To better understand the various levels of obedience training that a dog can achieve, you can find out more from the different obedience titles that a canine can win as a result of competition in American Kennel Club obedience trials. These trials are divided into classes, or grades, of competition, as compared to grade school, high school, and college.