Posts Tagged ‘Family Dog’
The Right Type Of Communication For Dog Training Success
The most crucial factor that can spell the difference between success and failure in dog training is attitude – both yours and your dog’s.
While your family dog may have some pretty serious difficulties, your dog’s right attitude toward dog training will help overcome even his most intolerable behavior.
However, control of your dog’s attitude rests entirely with you!
You need to mold your dog into the family member you want him to be – where obedience and instant response will allow a relationship for you and your pet that is free from stress and frustration.
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This article will deal only with training dogs between six months of age and older. There is a difference in training techniques when teaching a dog below the age of six months, and that age group will require methods specifically intended for puppies.
Teaching a six-month-old dog with kindergarten methods would be an insult to his intelligence, much like a college student would be offended if his instructor talked to him using child-like teaching techniques. Similarly, a six-year-old child would achieve nothing sitting in a classroom listening to a professor explaining the theory of relativity.
Setting Positive Attitudes While Training Your Dog
If your dog’s training periods each day consist of nothing but commands, I can assure you that a negative attitude will develop from your pet. His daily routine is now being changed to include training sessions. It is up to you, his owner, to make these training periods something that your dog will enthusiastically look forward to.
You can achieve this simply by communicating verbally with the dog during training periods.
Here lies another key that will spell the difference between mediocre and excellent performance from your dog. By communicating verbally doesn’t mean the usual “Heel” and “Sit” commands.
Literally talk to your dog during dog training. Say something like “Good Boy….. You’re doing a great job… Come on boy, you can do it…etc.”
Although your dog has no idea what you are saying, two things are actually taking place while you’re talking to him.
First, your enthusiastic and warm tone of voice reflects your positive attitude and motivates your dog into doing a great job in order to please you.
Second, this motivation then triggers a positive attitude in your dog.
Commands, on the other hand, should be given in a completely different tone of voice. They should, in fact, sound like commands, and not requests.
They are then followed by enthusiastic and loving praise as soon as the dog follows the command or when shown what his correct response should have been.
Keep in mind that the most important key to the success of your dog training is communication.
Talk to him, reflect your positive attitude in the tone of your voice throughout dog training, and your dog will reflect his positive attitude in the excited way he welcomes each day’s training session.
Dog Food & Supplements: An In Depth Look At Nutrition And Dog Health (7)
According to the canine nutritional experts, a ninety pound adult German Shepherd can require up to seven cans of dog food per day for proper dog health.
A sixty pound Collie can require five cans per day. For the average household and overall dog health, this can become an expensive choice.
Dry dog foods, on the other hand, contain only about ten percent moisture – the other sixty five percent having been removed intentionally during the dehydration process.
The dog owner is expected to replace the moisture for better dog health either by providing the dog with ample amounts of water alongside the feeding dish, or by adding it directly to the dry food.
Feeding directions on labels of dry dog food are very explicit about this.
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The drawback in feeding dry dog food usually has been caused by the dog owner having allowed the family pooch to enjoy table scraps. Eating people-food accomplishes absolutely nothing for Sparky’s nutritional needs or dog health and simply creates the problem of the finicky eater.
Under the mistaken belief that he’s doing the dog a favor, the dog owner is really robbing the animal of nutrients that are rightfully his – taking food right out of his mouth, so to speak.
In the middle of the scale are the “soft-moist” products which contain more moisture content than dry foods, but considerably less than the canned foods. They are the easiest of all three types to prepare, but are far and away the most expensive. Probably, they are economically most suitable for the small dog.
A compromise solution for the family with the finicky eater as well as the family with a limited dog food budget might be a combination of both canned and dry. Mixing two types – each balanced nutritionally – does nothing to upset the interrelationships of the nutrients.
It’s much easier to control the weight of the family dog when this combination is used. Rather than cut down on the volume intake of the obese dog, a decrease in the amount of dry food, with corresponding increase in canned food will accomplish this without having a constantly hungry dog begging for handouts.
On the other hand, increasing the amount of dry food, with a corresponding decrease in canned, may help to bring the weight up and improve the dog health on the dog that has a tendency to be skinny.
The diet of today’s pet dog has come quite a long way from the old days of being fed whale blubber, potatoes and cornbread. Now if manufacturers would take just as much interest in human foods… but for now, if your dog’s choice between caviar or a commercially prepared, balanced dog food, he’d be wise to select the dog food. Pound for pound – and dollar for dollar – the dog and his owner would be way ahead.
Dog health is important so pay extra attention to what your dog hoovers.
Dog Training: Basic Equipment Needed To Train Your Family Dog
Dog Training Basics
You will need three specific pieces of equipment for proper dog training: a training collar, a leather training leash, and a 15-foot length clothesline rope.
If you’re already thinking that your dog’s present leather collar will work, and that his 4-foot chain leash will suffice, you may as well stop reading this article and save yourself and your dog weeks of discomfort and hardship. There simply is no substitute for the right training equipment. A training collar is a slip-chain type made of metal. Don’t substitute one that’s made of nylon.
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One of the many things your dog is going to learn is to have confidence in you. But he will never develop that feeling of confidence if you substitute improper training equipment that will not be effective. Where there’s no confidence there can be no respect, and no respect means no desire to please. No desire to please means no willingness to learn. Add them all up and you have an uncontrollable dog that will never achieve his rightful place in human world.
The Proper Leash For Dog Trainng
Your leash should be of the regular five to six foot leather type with a hand loop at one end.
Training collars and leather training leashes are available at pet shops and via online catalogs. Training collars are sometimes called choke-chains, which is incorrect.
While it’s true that a training collar can choke, if it’s worn on the dog correctly and used properly, there’s no way it can be a choke-chain and cause harm to your pet.
The Right Collar For Dog Training
The collar should be large enough to slide over the dog’s head comfortably, but not so large as to fall over the ears if the dog should lower his head.
A good rule of thumb to follow is to place the collar on the dog and cinch it up tight for a moment and observe whether you have three inches of chain left over.
If so, you have a fairly good fit. It is better to have a training collar that’s slightly too large than one slightly too small.
Final Dog Training Necessities That You Cannot Find In A Store
The remaining equipment that you’ll need cannot be purchased at any store, but without them, you cannot successfully execute dog training.
You must love and care for your dog! You must have patience and exercise patience while your dog is learning. A shallow patience mixed with a short temper will ensure complete and utter failure.
To lose your cool and blow up means the end of dog training, so here’s a little tip that might help you keep your cool:
It takes 4 to 5 days for an average dog to learn the average thing. Do not expect your dog to perform like a professional the first few days of teaching him something new. It just doesn’t happen that way. If you lose control of yourself, you have lost control of the situation. When this happens while dog training, your dog loses confidence in you.
Dog Training: How To Make Dog Training A Family Affair
Teaching good manners while dog training is not just something to be left up to the adults of the house. Although mom and dad will usually bear the most responsibility for the family dog’s training, including children in the process is important, too.
Your needs to know that it must respond and behave politely for all members of the family. Plus, giving the kids the opportunity to really help with their dog’s education can be a wonderful learning experience for them. Being involved in training a dog can teach children patience and compassion – and succeeding at the task will promote positive self-esteem.
Dog’s don’t generally view children as authority figures so any training techniques that rely on physical corrections tend to backfire when kids try to pursue them. Children are usually more successful using reward-based training techniques such as lure-and-reward or clicker training methods. This works better for everyone, because most dogs tend to work hard to earn treats, toys, and other enjoyable rewards.
Any family member can take part in training, feeding, and grooming your dog – just make sure they’re up to the job. Most children younger than ten (and some older kids, as well) need ongoing supervision and parental support to keep them on track.
Don’t expect more involvement than your child is mature enough to give, and remember to check daily that their jobs have been done – your pet’s safety and comfort are at stake. Yes, children need to learn responsibility – but this should never come at the expense of an animals welfare.
It’s usually best for an adult to start the dog on any new lesson before adding young co-trainers. That way the dog has a general idea of what to do and the children won’t be starting from scratch. Training will go more smoothly this way and the kids will experience less frustration and greater success.
To get kids involved in your dog’s training, first let them watch you working with the dog, then show them how to do it themselves. Stand by, at least in the beginning, to coach and support – and to get the lesson back on track, if necessary.
Some children actually turn out to be better trainers than many adults. If your child is one of these marvels, celebrate this success by allowing him or her to take on more of the training and teach the dog new tricks and tasks. Many positive dog trainers now encourage children to fully participate in their obedience classes so check around – there may be one that you, your dog, and your kids can attend together; this is crucial for the success of dog training.
Dog Training: How To Make Dog Training A Family Affair 2
Making dog training a family affair is a fun and rewarding experience for everyone. To start, you must commit to declaring the rules that will govern your dog’s behavior, and let everyone know that these rules must be followed by everyone – because family-wide consistency is essential to achieve good results from training.
Establishing The Rules
Make sure everyone knows and follows the same rules with your dog, or your best-laid dog training plans will unravel. If one person allows the dog to jump on them or play rough games, for example, your dog will try these behaviors with other people. And when your family isn’t consistent about keeping the rules, don’t expect your dog to either!
The best time to establish rules is before you bring your puppy or adult dog home. That way, everyone can be consistent right from the start. Chances are pretty good, however, that if you’re reading this article now, you probably already have your dog at home with you. So the best thing to do is to start right away – establish your “good dog rules” today, make sure the whole family knows what they are, and have everyone agree to follow them, starting immediately.
Family Meeting Time
Call the whole family together to create a list of the important rules regarding the dog. Encourage each person, including the children, to offer ideas and describe how they’d like the dog to behave so everyone will feel included.
Discuss reasons for each rule you decide to implement so its importance is understood. Big rules – such as not feeding from the table or the types of play that will be allowed – must be the same for everyone.
Write down your list of agreed-upon rules and let the children illustrate the page by drawing pictures of your dog being good. The more personal involvement each family member has with the list of dog rules, the more likely everyone will be to abide by them. When your list is finished and illustrated, post it in a central location, such as the refrigerator, so no one forgets the rules (or pretends to).
I cannot stress enough just how important it is for your children (and everyone else in the house) to all have the same mindset and understanding of how you want your dog handled during training.
In the next article we will discuss how to teach the rules, how to initiate training games, and how to keep dog training consistent – all of which will fail if you do not set the entire family on the same path.
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