All The Help You Can Get To Train Your Dog

No-one is about to claim that training a dog is an easy thing to do. Dogs are animals with personalities, and whether or not those personalities are amenable to training, they will present different challenges with each different dog. It cannot be denied that some are easier to train than others, but no dog is untrainable. It is simply the case that some dogs need to be given more of a chance than others to pick up what their master wants them to learn. After all, humans are the same – if you got straight As in your freshman year of high school, congratulations, but you are in a minority.

So it makes sense that there is help that can be found to improve the behavior of a dog you are finding hard to train. As ordinary “civilians” when it comes to the overall behavioral patterns of a pet dog, it goes without saying that we will not magically have access to the “button” inside a dog’s mind that makes it behave well, perform tricks or anything else you want it to do. There are professionals who have written books and made DVDs showing helpful tips and hints, and a wealth of websites which do the same.

You may even take your dog to a trainer who will be able to identify ways to get it behaving the way you would like. The expense of doing this makes it something that you may not want to do too regularly, but if all else fails it can be beneficial to you and to your dog.

You Reap What You Sow

Dogs in general have a tendency to follow their instincts and their influences. Canine behavior is something that has given countless experts reason to write countless books, and as far and wide as you go you are unlikely to find an expert who advocates an aggressive manner of dog training. The reason for this is that dogs absorb what they are taught very quickly, and behaving aggressively towards a dog will influence it to behave in an equally aggressive manner. Deep down in every dog, there is the instinct of a wolf – because that is what they have descended from.

Now, if you find a wolf in the wild and take an aggressive posture towards it, the wolf will not back down. It is likely to go for your throat and not stop until either you or it are incapacitated. Although domestic dogs have lost something of that instinct and ferocity, there is buried deep down a tendency to react with aggression when it is backed into a corner by an owner – if you strike a dog, it may back down. If you repeatedly strike it, it will react as any animal under threat – and it will hurt you.

Give a dog fun, exercise and affection and it will reciprocate in the most wonderful way. Its instinct is to form a bond with its owner and do anything it can to please them. Use this instinct to your advantage, and watch your dog blossom into someone you can be proud of, rather than a wolf with slightly blunted teeth and instincts.

I’m Not Sure I Like Your Tone…

Training a dog is a practice which makes big demands on an owner. There is a lot of effort involved in ensuring that a dog behaves well, and each person will have their own views on which methods are the most effective and efficient. What is certain is that each dog will react in its own way to different stimuli. One of the most effective tools in keeping a dog on its best behavior is the human voice – make sure your dog gets used to the sound of yours, because this is how you will get the best out of it.

As humans, we are used to recognising the tone of each other’s voices. We have become so good at this that we almost don’t need to hear a person’s words in order to know what they are saying. A warning tone, a praising tone, a cheerful tone… each is recognisably different to us, and it will be recognisable to your dog too. In this respect, you can teach your dog well by allowing it to recognise what you are saying, without having to teach it a command.

Speaking in the correct tone need not even take practice. Usually, your emotions take control of your tone of voice, and skilled liars have to work to keep their tone even – so allowing your genuine tone to come through should be simple. The dog will come to recognise the cadence of what you say as much as the actual command – and it will be this that they come to associate with good and bad behaviors and their consequences.