Article Notices

I can’t think of anything that requires more patience (except perhaps for raising children) then training a dog. Most people don’t have a lot of patience naturally so along with training your dog, you might have to train yourself as well.

You’ll need to find the right length of a training session for your pet and perhaps work on expanding it. You have to remember you are dealing with a dog which has the attention span of about a two year old. Different breeds and individual dogs differ in their attention span as well.

When it comes to dog behavior questions, you need to go back to nature. In the wild, dogs are pack animals. Their pack has a hierarchy. The alphas are the leaders of the pack. The omegas are passive and often behave fearfully. There are also individuals that fall in between those two extremes. If you intend to successfully train your dog, you must be the alpha in your pack. At all points, you must be training your dog. Don’t let your dog train you. Even if it feels like that is happening, you must still actually be in charge.

When giving commands, be firm, but do not yell. Do not get angry with your dog when they do not obey. Rather than becoming frustrated with your dog, persist in your practice. Also, do not let the dog become the alpha of your pack. Your goal in training should not be to stroke your ego or to feel like you have power over your dog. The goal should be to have a safer environment for your dog and your family.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Helpful Info, Pets .