Steer Clear of Over-Punishing Your Dog

There are some people who feel that fear is the best motivator – period. If you want someone to act in a certain way and eschew other behaviors, you will often use the “stick” approach. This works in a fairly simple way – you make clear what you want to happen, and threaten negative results if the outcome is not to your taste. If the outcome then falls short of what you had hoped, you follow through with your threat. The person then becomes aware that your threat was genuine, and resolves to take you seriously.

The same process is often applied to training a dog. If the dog transgresses in some way, it will be punished. Often this will take the form of a physical punishment such as striking the dog. If this method is applied frequently enough, it will filter through that the behavior and the punishment are linked. Eventually, or sooner, the dog will make the link in its brain and cease the negative behavior. However, it may also come to see you as its punisher rather than its friend.

The key is to not over-punish your dog. It is simply not accurate to say that fear is the greatest motivator. Anyone who has seen the effects of excessive physical punishment on a dog cannot fail to see how the results can be hugely negative. It may resist the instinct to transgress, but equally it will not want to do anything at all. And a dog which behaves well, but loses its vitality, says more about its trainer than anything else.

Rewarding Your Dog Is Important

Part of dog training, an important part, is knowing when and how to reward your dog. The concept of positive reinforcement is an important element of training any animal, and dogs have a mentality which responds well to this type of action. While a human may look for ulterior motives in any reward system – and openly rebel against such actions – a dog will simply see that there is a connection between “good” behavior and good results. This is why positive reinforcement is a necessary part of training any dog.

It works as follows: You want your dog to learn how to respond to a certain command. By repeating that command until the dog carries out the action, you create a link in your dog’s brain between the command and the action. When the dog responds to the command by performing the action, you then reward it by giving it a treat. The link is then strengthened in the dog’s brain. Command + Action = Treat. The dog will become willing to respond to your command, knowing that the results will be in its favor.

It can take time to make this message stick. Some dogs are less amenable to training than others – just as all humans are different, so are all dogs. But just as all humans have instinctive ways of responding to stimuli, so do all dogs. It is essential that you give your dog time to work out the right way to react to your training. The benefits will quickly become evident.

Man’s Best Friend?

Training your dog can be either a heck of a lot of fun, or a consistent nightmare for any pet lover depending on a number of factors. Getting it right can, and usually will, take a lot of persistence and a great deal of patience too, even if your pet pooch is generally well-behaved. The trouble with training even the most well-behaved dog is that you are trying to get it to work against its instincts – and this doesn’t happen overnight.

All the same, it is worth sticking with it. A dog can be taught to follow certain commands, even if it has shown all the signs of being resistant to training. It is a matter of not giving up, and telling yourself that you will not be beaten. Getting through to your dog may take time, but when you do achieve it you will see that it was worth it. It is important to remember to reward your dog for examples of good behavior, no doubt, because this will make things go a lot smoother.

Dogs really can be man’s best friend. They are fiercely loyal and endlessly entertaining, and are one of the most popular pets in the world for a reason. If your dog is beginning to get you down by stepping out of line frequently, it is time to put in place a training regime that will teach it the right way to behave. It may be daunting to begin with, but in time you will recognize the benefits and may even begin to enjoy it.

« Previous Page