Educating a dog is a responsible task. But who knows what is important in dog training, can proceed right from the beginning and thus avoid the grossest mistakes – for the benefit of the dog and for a stress-free cooperation of humans and animals.
1. No acclimatization phase
Many dog owners like it well and after the move to the new home, they want to give the dog time to settle in before the rules are introduced. But no matter if puppy or senior dog: It is advisable to enforce the basic rules from the beginning. For the dog unfavorable links to train again is much more difficult than not to let them emerge.
2. Pay attention to unity and consistency
Dogs are true world champions in finding education gaps. Unless all the people in contact with the dog pull together, it becomes difficult. Even if only occasionally a person is allowed to go through something that is not allowed, this can nullify months of dog training.
3. Clear communication
Dog owners sometimes tend to talk to dogs as they do to humans. Sentences like „But I’ve already told you often enough that you can not chew on my new shoes“ may indeed satisfy the human need for speech, but a „no!“ Combined with the appropriate gesture is sufficient in dog training. Whoever persuades his dog, can be lucky that the dog interprets everything correctly, but it can also be that the dog classifies the continuous chatter as background noise and fades out in the future.
4. The right timing
Many mistakes in dog training are due to the wrong timing. Dogs live in the now. You can not assign things that are a few minutes ago to a current action (eg, rewarding). If, for example, the dog is petted during the greeting when it jumps up, the dog will not be patting on the greeting itself but on jumping up. Therefore: pet the dog then, if he has all four paws on the ground. Unless you want to be jumped at every welcome.
5. The perfect motivation
The secret of perfect motivation is to teach the dog that it is always the most exciting thing with the owner, so the dog pays his attention to the owner. In addition, the method of positive reinforcement has become established. Whether this is done by treats (Caution: These must be deducted from the usual feed ration), stroking, praise or play (eg Dummy) is secondary.
6. Always stay calm
Some dogs keep falling back into the same (wrong) patterns of behavior, as if all they had ever taught them was forgotten. Pressure, screaming or even violence do not help here. They just make things worse, because the dog is even more unsettled and therefore creep in more errors. Therefore: stay calm, create a pleasant learning atmosphere and start over. If it works then reward extensively.
7. The right pace of learning
We humans are often too ambitious. We are looking for success, although the dog can not afford the desired momentarily. If something goes wrong, it is rarely on the dog. In many cases, man has gone one step too fast and what he has just learned has not yet been consolidated. It makes sense, therefore, to always start with the smallest possible step and then slowly increase the level of difficulty. It is completely normal that not everything works out in the beginning.
8. Do not humanize!
Although many believe that dogs have human characteristics, you should ignore this when educating the dog. For, for example, whoever assumes that the dog will do something wrong on purpose or out of stubbornness will quickly end up in a cul-de-sac. Rather, it is advisable to always keep in mind: If the dog does not execute a command, he does not because he wants to annoy us, but because usually an existing distraction is greater than what we want or seen the other way around the motivation to execute the command is too low.
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