A Happy Dog Is A Well-Behaved Dog

In our society, there is a tendency to have a political response to most things. Many people are of the opinion that criminals transgress due to an unhappy home life or a poor upbringing. Comfort and discomfort are a major part of the influence that affects a person’s life, whether you are of the opinion that some people are “just bad” or otherwise. By the same token, dogs are liable to react to their circumstances, and it is well-known that a more content dog will behave in a more respectful manner.

When it comes to training a dog, you will get results if you motivate by fear. However, these results may not be satisfactory to you because although the dog will respond to commands, it will do so tentatively, conscious as it is of the fact that getting it wrong will lead to punishment. If a dog is trained in a happy atmosphere with an owner who is prone to reward good behavior, then it will react to the correct stimuli in the correct way. It will behave in a way which makes you feel proud, rather than simply satisfied.

If you have concerns about being too “soft” with your dog, simply remember that a dog will react in kind to the way it is treated. If you let it be lazy, then it will take the opportunity – simply because that is what it knows. If you encourage activity, however, it will reward you with the behavior that you want from it.

Tools Of The Trade

A dog will respond to training, if the person training it has the knowledge and perseverance to make it happen. This kind of perseverance can be hard to come by, and it can be difficult to be patient. There is a lot of training that can be done simply by what nature has furnished us with, such as our voice and our hands. However, to make the job easier there are numerous tools that we can buy. Dogs are, deep down, obedient animals by nature – but it is a matter of what they obey, and finding this can be a process of trial and error.

Dogs are known to respond to what their ears tell them. They are well known for having an excellent sense of hearing in combination with their excellent sense of smell. This means that certain noises which are insignificant to humans will draw a reaction from a dog. Many trainers find that, where all else fails, it can be beneficial to use a whistle or a clicker. If a dog is misbehaving, making a short, sharp noise will get its attention like nothing else. Sometimes the wrong noise can hurt a dog’s ears – so you should research the product that you are buying to ensure that it is humane.

Other tools can play on the other senses that a dog has. Although dogs cannot see as clearly as humans, they are responsive to motion. Holding one of the dog’s toys to teach it to show restraint can be very beneficial in this respect.

What Is Problem Behavior?

Many dog owners at one time or another become frustrated with their dog due to its behavior. There may be many reasons for this. It could be that the dog is destroying things through constant scratching and gnawing, or that it is going to the toilet in the house. It may be that it is violent, or threatening, to other dogs and pets or to humans. In any case where a dog’s behavior is giving you reason for concern, you should always be ready to intercede and find a way to stop the behavior becoming a long-term problem.

Problem behavior in dogs is something that can make an owner feel very pressured. We all love our pets, and when they misbehave all that we want is for them to understand that it upsets us. We really would prefer that they would behave themselves all the time, but if they are going to step over the line occasionally we would at least hope that they desist the first time we request it. If they continue it, this is when it becomes “problem behavior”. This is something that we all want to avoid.

If problem behavior becomes a major issue for you with your pet, you should sit down and consider why it is happening. Is your dog getting the right amount and kind of exercise? Does it get enough human interaction? Is there something in its diet which might be causing it to behave in a strange way? All of these issues need to be considered, as that allows us to address problem behavior.

Spoiling Your Dog – How Far Is Too Far?

Most pet owners will confess, if asked, to the fact that they do spoil their pet in terms of treats, feeding and cuddles. There is certainly no shame in this admission, in fact most of us would agree that it gets right to the heart of the matter – spoiling pets is half the reason for having them in the first place. Of course, this refers to “spoiling” in the sense that your pet is given treats regularly and made a fuss of. Sometimes spoiling can go too far, and lead to another kind of spoiling altogether.

A dog will respond to treats in exactly the way you wish it to, as long as you stick to the straight and narrow with how you distribute treats. If you hand it a treat every hour or more, it will simply see this as standard behavior. Its own behavior will become fairly lazy and it will have little incentive to display the behavior you had come to hope for. Treats can be given just for the sake of it, but they cease to be “treats” in any real sense once they become the norm.

You should keep a keen eye on how frequently you give your dog a doggy-chew or a bit of food unbidden. These treats can play a major part in how you train your dog, and if a morsel of food is just another bite to eat in a long day of eating and relaxing, it will grow lazy and not bother much with tricks and behavior, which is a shame for all concerned.