The main thing to remember about training a dog is that there is no training method that will work for everybody. Every dog is different and so is every owner. This is why many of the catch all training methods popularized by books, television shows and tapes often don’t work for most owners. Those methods are often designed for specific breeds or situations.
Another thing to remember is that the training described in books and shown on TV is often done under ideal conditions. The trainer on TV or in the DVD often has an unlimited amount of time to spend with her Dog behavior training Houston. Unlike a real person the trainer doesn’t have job, family, children and other distractions.
This means that you should always be leery of “new training methods.” Generally, new training methods are the same old training methods repackaged to get dog owners to fork over money for the new training program.
That means you should find a good basic training regime that works for you and your dog and stick to it. The training regime should be simple and it should be effective.
Some Dog Training Tips
- The most effective training methods do not involve pain or physical punishment. This can be cruel and it can warp a dog’s personality. In particular avoid choke collars and electric shock devices.
- Make sure that you are rewarding the dog for good behavior. Dogs learn good behavior faster when they are rewarded for it. Hugging or giving the dog a treat when it does something right is a good way to teach it to do the right thing.
- Make sure that you are not rewarding the dog for bad behavior. Many owners make the mistake of paying a lot of attention to the dog when it has done something bad. This is actually rewarding the dog by giving her what she wants namely attention. Instead punish the dog by not paying much attention to it.
- Establish discipline over the dog early and maintain it. It doesn’t take long for a dog to learn that an owner doesn’t mean what he or she says. Dogs will get away with as much bad behavior as you allow, if a dog learns there are no limits it will accordingly.
- Make sure there isn’t a double standard in the training. In many families two or three different people treat the dog differently. A husband may allow a dog to do things a wife won’t allow. This makes it easy for the dog to get away with bad behavior. Establish one set of rules for the dog and make no exceptions.
- Be very careful with children around dogs. Children will often undermine dog training or worse train it to do things you don’t want. That means you should make it clear to kids what the dog can do and what it can’t. Don’t let young children have responsibility for the dog.
Professional Dog Training
Professional dog training can be effective but it is expensive. It can also wear off once the dog gets home and out of obedience school.
It is best to try and train the dog yourself. If you do get professional training try and find a program in which you can participate so you and not a stranger will be the one the dog responds.