Training a dog is very important especially for pet dogs that live right inside your home. Dogs, in-as-much as they are animals have some intelligence to understand your gestures not necessarily your words. The understanding of words comes later when they are able to associate it with your gestures.

Why do you need to train your dog?

Dogs especially puppies love to play with anything and eventually destroy them, jump on you and stain or scratch your cloths, eat bones or any food on your bed by practically carrying it there, pee or poop on your bed etc. With these bad behaviors and more you can agree that there is a need to train that pet to minimize the damages.

When do you start to train?

Most times it’s better to train a dog from puppy stage so that he grows with the instructions in this head. Adult dogs can also be “broken” to imbibe good behavior; I have been successful with that as well. It’s necessary that you understand that the dog has bad behavior that needs to be eliminated than being frustrated by it. Frustration can lead to beating the animal or maltreating the dog or puppy inflicting greater damages that may not be easily reversed in future.

Why train by talking to the dog?

It is a common practice for parents to talk to their child when he does things wrong. The same can be done to animals and dogs in this case.

The necessary things to do first

Make sure your puppy or dog is not chained or caged for better result within the home. The dog should be free to roam the entire house. This makes it possible for the dog to follow you around where ever you go within the house. It is better for the dog to live with one person during this training so that he will have undivided attention when being instructed. Many persons in the family instructing one dog will lead to confusion and eventually the dog decides to do his own bidding and reject other instruction. It is better to keep one dog at a time while this training goes on.

Use the needs of the puppy or dog to instruct

You need to identify what this puppy or dog needs or loves. He might like to play with you, play with a toy, eat a certain food, lie down in a certain place, climb a certain object, hide in a certain place etc. these are the weapons you need to be able to instruct your dog to do what you want.
Many trainers believe in training with food or treat but from my own experience it is not 100% correct to use food as a tool to instruct your dog because their needs change depending on their mood and other psychological interplay.

Don’t use long sentences

When you want to instruct your dog do not speak long sentences like: “Sit down here”, “go back to your cage”, “lie down here” etc. these are counterproductive because they are too long and you may not be consistent with it. Use short words to associate with your gestures. Words like: “stop”, “sit”, “down”, “up” etc.

How to make them understand and do as you say

I had a little Havanese breed a toy hairy dog that refuses to climb the stairs but he wanted to follow me so I identified the need that is the fact that he wanted to follow me so I will climb the stair and say “up”, “up”. I would say it several times trying to make sure he doesn’t give up the need to follow me. At the sound of the word “up” he jerks like he wants to move up with me, as I repeat it he starts to climb. I use it when I want him to climb my bed or table.
A little pug of mine likes to jump on me when i return from work. She does that very often so I identified the need. She wants to greet me so I will say “stop”, she won’t listen at first and still jumps, I will then show my palm at her and say “stop”, at this point she starts to wonder: “why the palm”, while wondering she sits then I reach out and carry her and play with her for 30 seconds and drop her again and she wants to jump again, I repeat the “stop” word again and when she stops, I play with her again. Gradually the need begins to wane. This was repeated for some time until she was able to understand the word to mean stop so when she is barking and I say stop she stops.

Summary

When you understand the need of your dog you can manipulate the dog while associating a word to it. This will help your dog understand you when you speak. In my case when I look at my dog she knows exactly what I mean. Do not beat your dog to teach because the dog will always run away from you and you will not be able to talk to the dog and get the desired result.

Let us hear your own technique…

so helpful ... this is what you call a front page material not the mumu bbn

Cool. Educative

Thanx.