The Coach's Corner: Training Tips for Fans of the K9 Coach
As your dog is learning fundamental life skills and basic obedience, you must have consistency in your expectations, discipline, and communications. Your consistency is the key to unlocking success in your dog’s training. Yes, that means you may have more to learn than your dog!
Your goal should be 100% consistency by all members of the
family. Will you achieve 100%? No.
But with 100% as your goal, you’ll do a much better job of getting it
right and preventing confusion for your dog.
What does this mean?
Ultimately, you make the determination of what your dog is expected to
do and what you’ll find permissible. You
may have some decisions to make to prevent family behaviors that may be
confusing your dog:
· Is your dog allowed on the sofa – ever? Or only when invited? Or only when Dad’s not home?
· If it’s Ok for Dad to feed him a taste of dinner
from the table but not for the kids to do so?
Does someone sneak food under the table, and you’re later embarrassed
when Fido begs your guests for food?
· Does Dad make him sit and wait for his food to
be delivered but mom doesn’t?
· Do the kids allow him to bolt out the door while
you’re trying to train him to wait at the door?
· Does Dad invite Fido to jump up on him, but then
tries to prevent him jumping on Grandma?
· Does Dad rough-house with the dog, but then get
angry when he tries the same with the kids?
Some things should be non-negotiable though. Examples:
· Your dog should never be allowed to jump on
people.
· Your dog should be expected to comply with a
command (Sit, Down, Come) every time it’s issued, the 1st time. It will never be effective if they don’t have
to do it at home, but are then expected to do it 100% of the time in public or
when guests come over.
· Aggressive behavior is never to be tolerated
without discipline. This includes
growling in the drive-thru window or as your neighbor’s dog walks down the
street.
What does consistency in training mean, really? Have very clear expectations of what you
expect from your dog and the consequence for not meeting that expectation. Be disciplined in your practice and
follow-through. Whatever you choose as
your training technique, you need to demonstrate the same response
(praise/reward and/or correction) every single time the behavior is
demonstrated while the dog is learning.
You need to use the same word(s), same hand-signals, and the same body
language (or lack thereof) every time.
Over time you can vary or even eliminate treat based rewards
if you’re using them, but you can never vary your expectation for the dog to
comply with your command. If corrections
are effective during learning, and you have associated the word “no” with the
correction -- the word “no” will be
eventually be enough of a correction to let the dog know that he has not met
your expectations and allow you to repeat the command.
Your words and body-language communicate a message to your
dog. If not used consistently you can
actually create confusion for your dog or perhaps even coax them into the wrong
behavior – leaving you wondering why your dog didn’t do the command you
expected. You dog will without question
pick up on your patterns or sequence of events and your body language. It may be so subtle you don’t notice it; but
your dog will. They are far more in
tune with body language than we will ever be.
Your dog is learning something in every single interaction
you have with him. And because dogs
learn by association, behaviors they practice generally become habits. Therefore, if your dog gets to practice bad
behavior sometimes, it’s going to be much harder to gain reliability when you
really need it. A classic example of
this is your dog has free reign of the house while you’re gone, and barks like
crazy every time the neighbors pass by.
You come home and tell him to stop – and it doesn’t work well. During the learning phase you need to prevent
your dog from practicing bad behaviors.
If you can’t be there to correct it, close the blinds, put him in a
crate or block access to the front of the house. And then use controlled training opportunities
to teach a new behavior to replace the old (bad) behavior.Be consistent. Your dog will thank you for it, and you will find your dog is much better at doing things right, and has a lot more fun doing it.
Have questions or need help with more
advanced training or behavioral issues.
Call us today. We can help.
Dana Brigman
The K9 Coach
Dog Training - Matthews, NC
980-339-8064
www.thek9-coach.com
info@thek9-coach.com
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My mission is a better life for dogs as members of a forever family.
My goal is create training solutions for the home owner, to rehabilitate dogs from shelters and rescues, and to prevent dogs from dying alone as strays or owner surrenders in shelters due to unnecessary aggression or behavioral issues.
Begin training with a consult with a professional trainer to be sure you're solving the right problem. Misdiagnosis can make the matters worse. Be sure that there are no medical issues at play and that your dog is not in pain, as pain can be a contributor to a new display of aggression. If you have any fear or uncertainty -- do not attempt the techniques without professional supervision.
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