Dog training

Hi everyone and welcome to critter chat. This fortnight we are covering some training basics. A well trained and disciplined dog fits so much better into the family and makes owning a dog a whole lot more fun. We hope you get some good tips out of this fortnights chat and remember, its never too late to train a dog!!

There are lots of techniques to train a new puppy and adult dogs but the key is consistency, repetition and PATIENCE. Ideally, training should commence from as soon as you get them home and needs to include all of the family including children.

Dogs are pack animals and therefore think in terms of a dominance heirarchy. Your family is the dogs ‘pack’ and you can expect your dog to obey all members in the pack that are dominant to them. Dogs interpret a level of dominance from a combination of size, tone of voice, behaviour and alliance(or support) with the ‘top dog’. This means men usually have no probs getting the pet to obey and are often considered ‘top dog’ (by the dog, not the women of the house of course!) as they are usually bigger and have deeper voices, therefore easily dominant. Kids, who are obviously smaller and have higher voices, have to work more at it- that’s why its important to get the kids involved with training (under adult supervision of course) and if the dog is misbehaving for the kids, backup from an adult (or ‘top dog’) will help with the kids dominance status.

Simply getting a dog to sit for a food reward is a simple way adults and kids can assert their dominance- they are controlling the food, and the dog only gets it when its done what is asked of it. So make your pet sit before its dinner- pretty simple.

If your pet is jumping up to greet people and you want it to stop then you have to get the visitors involved as well. In this case the attention the dog gets for the behaviour is the reward that must be denyed if the behaviour is unwanted. When the dog jumps up get the victim to say a firm no, cross their arms and turn 90 degrees and step away. Get the visitor to command sit and then praise the dog when its doing the behaviour you want (sitting) but not before- continue to turn away until the dog gets the idea. This one always requires a lot of repitition as the dog is excited, but persistance will pay off!

For those dogs that beg when you are eating- never feed your dog from the table, if there are leftovers wait until the end of the meal or put them in the fridge for tomorrows meal. Put the leftovers in the dogs bowl and make them sit for them, so they are being rewarded for the sitting, not the begging.

Dogs that persistantly pull at the lead are unpleasant to walk, so you walk them less and then they are excited and pull more when you do walk them. Not good. A halti collar is great for dogs who are strong and pull on the lead, it gives you control by turning their head so breaks the pull stance without wrenching on their neck.

With puppies be aware that behaviour that is cute now, may not be later.Jumping up, pulling at the lead, tugging at your clothes, are all examples of behaviours that are easier to nip in the bud early with a firm NO and a toy to distract them, then to correct later in an adult dog.

Be aware that dogs have short attention spans so keep training sessions short,10-15 minutes daily is much better than an hour once a week. Reward based training, where they are encouraged to perform simple tasks for a pat or food reward is the most effective. Reduce distractions, success depends on the dog focussing on you, so if you are training two dogs train them seperately. Always try and end the training session with success- if they are simply not getting it, go back to a basic sit, praise them and then call it a day, and always finish the session with a play activity so your dog (and you) continue to enjoy the interaction. Have fun with it and happy training!