Teaching Your Dog To Understand Simple Obedience
Experts say that dogs are one of the smartest animals. To prove their point, they have shown dogs that can add, flush the toilet bowl, get the newspaper and even play the piano (off tune, of course)!
If you are a dog owner but have no experience in teaching your dog anything at all, you might want to start now while your dog is still young. The older your dog gets, the less likely he or she will want to start listening to you.
The first thing any owner would teach their dog is how to sit. Just like any other command, the sit command cannot be taught overnight. You need to have a lot of patience (and a lot of treats) until the dog finally masters it.
A dog learns faster when rewarded for obeying a command, which is actually part of the training. This can be gradually weaned off as the training progresses so that the dog learns to obey your command even without the reward.
As an alternative to treats, you can reward your dog’s obedience through a gesture of acknowledgement for every command followed. A gentle and encouraging tone of voice, a pat on the head, or a caress will do as substitute for treats to reinforce the training process.
In case your dog does not respond to your command as dogs sometimes do, try to prod him a bit more urgently rather than shouting at him or abuse him physically. Your dog could be distracted or is not feeling comfortable with your command, so you may need to repeat the command in a more authoritative way.
Try to do the trick at least once a day to embed it. Many dogs have a poor short term memory so this will help.
Remember that you do not need to be a professional dog trainer in order to teach your dog to obey a command. A bit of research, diligence, and patience can make it possible for you to train your dog.
This individual has been contributing articles with respect to animals for the past six years. In addition, this individual likes publishing articles on more subjects, such as nail growth in addition to nail enamel.
Filed under Dog Training by on May 22nd, 2010.