The Secret To Training Your Dog

I'm sure everyone is reading this and hoping for a magic button to press and problem behaviours go away, well unfortunately, that doesn't exist with anything in life. Instead I'm going to tell you the secret to train your dog, which it's almost like a button, a button that you push in your brain to start training your dog the right way!

DON'T ALLOW BAD BEHAVIOURS TO HAPPEN.....

Simple.

I'm sure you're screaming at me, "but my dog eats food off my counter! How am I suppose to not allow that to happen when I'm not there?" Set the dog up to succeed in the first place! Don't put food up on the counter where your dog can grab it, block off your kitchen while you're not home so he can't surf for food if you leave something up there, the list goes on.


When a dog exhibits a bad behaviour, whether it's barking, stealing food, jumping or biting, he or she is LEARNING FROM IT (figuring out if they enjoy it enough to do it again). When you don't allow a behaviour to happen, the dog doesn't learn from it even if the dog has already been practising it. The behaviour will eventually extinguish itself with a little help from you to guide them in what you DO want them to do.


Dog's will always do what is most reinforcing to THEM. Every dog has a difference reinforcement system (check out my video for Different Types Of Reinforcements) so you must figure out what your dog enjoys.


Does It Work With Behavioural Problems?


This secret also applies with aggression. When you allow your dog to exhibit aggressive behaviours, your dog is learning from it and learning that it makes the scary things go away and the dog gets what it wants. Usually people put their dog in situations where the dog is highly uncomfortable and has to resort to aggressive behaviours to make things go away. Don't bring your dog in situations where he or she is uncomfortable, let the dog stop learning how to be aggressive. Once you stop that, you can start the rehabilitation if you want your dog to go in that situation again. 


When you train an alternate response, the same rule applies, don't allow the dog to get to that growl, lunge etc. Keep the dog under the threshold, train what you want and you are set!


Being Proactive!
Next time when your dog is doing something you don't like, ask yourself how you can prevent that from happening again. 


Not what can you do to let that dog know you don't like that!

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