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Dog Training: The One Important Aspect You Must Differentiate In Order To Gain Respect From Your Dog
The basis of training any animal is winning its trust,
confidence and respect. True training cannot begin until the
animal has accepted you as its leader, respects you and
entrusted you with his or her confidence.
The mistake many puppy owners make is mistaking love and
affection for respect and confidence. While it is certainly
important to love your new puppy, it is also very important that
the puppy respect you and see you as his leader. Dogs are
naturally pack animals, and every dog looks to the lead dog for
advice and direction. Making yourself the pack leader is vital
to the success of training any dog.
Failure to gain the respect of the dog can create a dog who is
disobedient, out of control and even dangerous. Problem dogs are
dangerous, whether they are created through bad breeding, owner
ignorance or improper training. It is important to train the dog
right from the start, since retraining a problem dog is much
more difficult than training a puppy right the first time.
It is important for any new dog owner, whether working with a 12
week old puppy or a twelve year old dog, to immediately get the
respect of the animal. That does not mean using rough or
dangerous handling methods, but it does mean letting the dog
know that you are in control of the situation. Dogs need
structure in their lives, and they will not resent the owner
taking control. As a matter of fact, the dog will appreciate
your taking the role of trainer and coach as you begin your
training session.
When working with the dog, it is important to keep the training
sessions short at first. This is particularly important when
working with a young puppy, since puppies tend to have much
shorter attention spans than older dogs. Keeping the training
sessions short, and fun, is essential for proper training.
Beginning training sessions should focus on the most basic
commands. The heel command is one of the most basic, and one of
the easiest to teach. Start by putting the dog or puppy in a
properly fitted training collar. Be sure to follow the
instructions for fitting and sizing the color to ensure that it
works as intended.
Begin to walk and allow your dog to walk beside you. If the dog
begins to pull, gently pull on the leash. This in turn will
tighten the training collar and correct the dog. If the gentle
pressure is ineffective, it may be necessary to slowly increase
the pressure. Always be careful to not over-correct the dog.
Using too much pressure could frighten the dog and cause it to
strain more. I the opposite problem occurs and the dog lags
behind, the owner should gently encourage it until it is walking
beside the owner.
Most dogs figure out the heeling concept fairly rapidly, and
quickly figure out that they should walk beside their owners,
neither lagging behind nor pulling ahead. Once the dog has
mastered heeling at a moderate pace, the owner should slow his
or her pace and allow the dog to adjust along with it. The owner
should also speed up the pace and allow the dog to speed up as
well. Finally, walking along and changing pace often will
reinforce the lesson that the dog should always walk at the heel
of the handler.
From heeling, the next step should be to halt on command. This
halt command works well as an adjunct to heel. As you are
walking, stop and watch you dog. Many dogs immediately realize
that they are expected to stop when their handler does. Others
may need the reminder of the leash and the training collar.
After the halt on command has been mastered, the handler should
encourage the dog to sit on command as well. Once the dog has
stopped, the handler gently pushes on the dog's hindquarters to
encourage the sit. Usually, after this walk, halt, sit procedure
has been done a few times, the dog will begin to sit on his own
each time he stops. Of course, it is important to provide great
praise, and perhaps even a treat, every time the dog does as he
is expected.
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