6 Tips for Keeping a Well Behaved Dog
Dogs may make great pets, however a dog that isn’t well-behaved can cause a lot of problems. While a good UT personal injury attorney will be able to help you if you or someone you know has been injured by a dog, it’s best to keep your dogs trained before things go that far. Here are six tips that can help you avoid situations like by keeping a well behaved dog.
Start Training Early
While you can sometimes teach an old dog new tricks, you’ll get much better results from training a puppy. When you train a puppy, they haven’t really had a chance to develop bad habits yet. That is why it is a good idea to start young. That way you can develop good habits in them at a young age that will stick with them throughout their lives. It is definitely a lot harder for old dogs to learn new habits and break old ones.
Use Positive Reinforcement
When it comes to training dogs, positive reinforcement is much more effective than punishment. Give treats and praise whenever your dog does what it’s supposed to do. It is also a good idea to try to make training a game to keep it fun for both you and your dog. If you must punish a bad behavior, keep the punishment gentle. Ignoring non-destructive bad behavior is actually very effective as it lets your dog know that it won’t receive attention for it. And yes, even yelling angrily counts as attention to a dog.
Give One Command at a Time
Too many commands will confuse your dog, so give only one at a time. By doing that you give them time to process what they really have to do. This makes your pet far more likely to listen to you, especially when you follow through with a reward or punishment.
Always Follow Through with a Response After a Command
Every command you give should be followed by a response from you. If you don’t follow through after a command, your dog will quickly learn that commands are optional and will be more likely to ignore you. That definitely doesn’t help teach them anything. You have to make sure that you are always consistent when you are training.
Use Your Dog’s Name in a Positive Way
Whenever possible, say your dog’s name in a positive way. This means that you should avoid using it in conjunction with reprimands and punishments, and you should also avoid saying it with an angry tone. A dog should associate its name with good things. That way, it will always respond when it is called.
Never Let Your Anger Show
Finally, try not to let your anger and frustration show when you’re dealing with a dog that is behaving badly. It’s okay to feel angry, but yelling or harshly punishing your dog will only make it fear you. This will cause your dog to act defensively, which is one of the biggest reasons why a dog misbehaves. In other words, remain calm even when you feel like you can’t. Things will work out if you keep your cool.
Overall, there are tons of ways to help keep you in keeping a well behaved dog. You should never have to worry about a thing. All you have to do is be consistent and never give up. By doing that and following these few steps you should be able to have your dog well trained in no time.
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6 Tips for Keeping a Well Behaved Dog
Guest Blogger: Kara Masterson is a freelance writer from West Jordan, Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah and enjoys writing and spending time with her dog, Max.
Other Articles by Kara Masterson:
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Is your dog well-behaved dog? Have you gone through training with him?
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One of the tips I enjoyed the most is always saying your dog’s name with a positive and happy tone. I catch myself sometimes asking Walter to come inside from digging a hole 🙂 with a tone and I know I need to go outside with treats and a leash if needed so this is a great reminder for me and for everyone. Or what I should do is drop calling him by name and stick to my “come inside” recall cue. Thanks for these tips!
I know exactly what you mean, Christine. Whenever I used “the tone” one of my dogs would rather die than come to me. It was pathetic. But then I’d take it up an octive or 2 and he’d come running like a little kid. You gotta love ’em! Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog today. I do hope you’ll come again. Peace
Good points – as with a kid, I usually use my dog’s full name to yell at him but use a ‘pet’ name (i.e. muffin man) when cooing over him. Probably a bad idea. Only Muffin Man behaves. … just kidding. What helped more than anything when I got my schnoodle (who’d been given up by three homes because of ‘behavior issues’) was exercise. A LOT of exercise daily. Then most of the issues disappeared.
Muffin man – i love that. I glad he was able to overcome some of his behavioral issues with lots of exercise. Just goes to show how important exercise can be, in so many ways. I’m glad for your visit to my blog. All the best to you, Sherri.
We didn’t do the best with our first dogs, but we’re getting better! I put my foot down when we got our last puppy, insisting that he be very well trained. As it turns out, training is a lot of fun!
Using your dog’s name in a positive way is a great tip and something I never thought about. I’m going to try to do that more, instead of always just using their names when I want them to do something!
YES! Training is so much fun, although there are days when you just want to give up forever. I did a lot of training with my German Shepherd and came out with the most beautiful and well-behaved dog I’ve ever had. RIP Star. I’d never thought of only using your dog’s name in a positive tone either before this guest blogger clued me in. I’ll have to remember that if I get another dog. Thank for taking the time to read the post, Jan. Ciao