How To Train Your Dog Without Touching It!
Dog Aggression
When it comes to training your dog, Diana Fisher from EnglishNanniesforDogs.com that while it’s best to train your dogs when they’re a puppy, “you can train any animal if it’s still breathing. It’s never too late.” Training isn’t just something that’s useful for the owner, it’s essential to ensure a non-aggressive dog.
Dog Aggression Training Basics
We’re all familiar with basic dog training commands. We’re talking about ‘sit’, ‘stay’, ‘heel’, and so on. These basics are not just convenient skills; they’re the foundation of a lifelong relationship with your dog. They set the tone for the rest of your dog’s life.Dogs that are trained properly – we’re talking about positive reinforcement techniques – assume their role as the lesser pack dog. Lowest on the totem pole. Dogs are social animals with a hierarchy.
It’s important for their safety and yours that you are considered the alpha dog. This isn’t accomplished with choke collars, yelling, and physical dominance but rather a structured environment where behaviors signal that you’re in charge. This means the dog is greeted last, fed last, and not allowed in the bedroom and so on.
When it comes to training, it means setting boundaries. For example, teaching your dog early on what they’re allowed to chew on and what isn’t appropriate. This is easily accomplished by simply replacing an unacceptable item like a shoe, book, hand or even the furniture with a bone or toy.
It takes diligence on your part, patience and constant supervision however it’s important to teach your dog what can and cannot be chewed on. If you fail to set these simple boundaries you’ll end up with a house full of chewed up stuff and a dog that pushes the limits in other areas too.
Says Fisher, “Sit and stay are important however one of my favorite commands is the settle down command.” With this command you have your dog on a leash, you have it lie down beside you, and you put the leash under your foot so that if the puppy tries to get up, it self-corrects it.
You're not pushing the dog down; the leash is holding it down. Do that for half an hour at a time each day and it teaches your dog to be quiet. A lot of people who have a very active dog think “oh my god, I've got to take it out for another hour's exercise.” All you're doing then is giving yourself an incredibly fit dog that needs four or five hours of exercise a day.
What the dog really needs to learn is to settle down by your foot. Eventually you’ll be able to take it off the leash and your dog, no matter whether your home, at the office or at a friend’s house, just sits down by your foot and stays here.
Training your dog isn’t something that is accomplished in a three week session at your local pet store. It’s a lifelong process. It’s about boundaries, repetition, positive reinforcement and remembering to train often.
Take too long of a break from training and your dog will forget, get rusty, and start pushing the limits. Hierarchy changes in a dog pack from time to time. To establish your role as the lead dog, you must remind them whose boss with regular positive reinforcement training sessions.
Aggression often stems from a dog thinking they have a higher role in the family than they really do. Owners often give mixed signals by letting the dog sleep with them, letting the dog set the boundaries like growling when ever someone gets close to their food, protecting their toys and even barking.
This behavior can be prevented if an owner understands how to position themselves as the boss. Positive reinforcement training, beginning with the basics like sit, stay, and settle down, go a long way towards future training and a calm, non-aggressive family pet. Check out this article for more information on dog aggression.
