Category: Dog Training Classes

The majority of dog owners have experienced their animal begging at the dinner table. No matter how much you love your puppy, this is a behavior, which you just shouldn’t tolerate. Especially if you have guests over, then your dog should be calm and leave everyone be during their meal.

There’s a lot said about being the pack leader. This term describes making sure your dog is aware that you are the one who is in charge of your household. Many dogs male and female will attempt to show their dominance by taking your food right off your plate. This is a usual problem when you have guests over, they turn there back to talk to someone sitting next to them, and instantly they loose there main course faster than you can say “what just happened”.

The biggest issue is occasionally feeding your dog from the dinner table is a bad habit to start. Owners often justify this behavior saying, “it’s just once in a while”, or even “I rarely do this but”. These are all bad excuses because it leads to a negative learned behavior for your dog. As the owner you must lead by example if you expect your dog to behave all the time, if you expect consistency out of your animal.

Now if your dog is well trained in general and listens to commands such as lie down, stay, heel, etc., then you do have the option of just making sure your animal follows your commands, its best to ask them to lie down above all else, this helps reinforce dominance in your relationship, it reminds the dog you’re the pack leader. Then, whatever you do it will follow suit and listen as closely as possible. If you do however notice your dog start to get up from the laying down position, curb that immediately and remind them to stay lying down while your feeding them.

Ultimately, you have to remain diligent with your dog and cannot be inconsistent. Your dog learns and remembers things via repetition and consistency. Practice this at every family meal, do it often enough prior to having any company over. Once you establish your guidelines with your dog when you are eating at the dinner table, everyone will be happier for it. Dogs need rules boundaries and limitations to feel complete. This is how it is in the wild, or if you have a pack of dogs, the dominant animal is going to let the rest of the pack know when something they are doing is disruptive, or making them feel uncomfortable, so it might feel like your being cruel sometimes to your dog, but they absolutely need this to be happy and healthy.

Living with your owner as a puppy can be quite difficult in the early learning stages of their development. The first of many live lessons for your puppy is not to relieve itself inside the house. Then of course your puppy lacks the ability to explain to you in plain english that it needs to go out to do its business. Also, unless your puppy can walk on its hind legs and use both paws to open the door, you’re going to have to train them to let you know when it’s time to head outside.

Not all pet owners know how to see the sometimes subtle signs that it’s time to go out for a walk and let your dog do its business. Many puppies develop social skills quite early, thus being able to get your attention that it needs to go outside. Some however, aren’t as adept at telling people when they need to go out. Even if your dog falls into this category there’s no need to panic. There are some very easy steps you can take to train your puppy to let you know when the time is right to head outside and let them do their business.

The first question is what if my puppy already does in fact ask to go out and I absolutely don’t understand the signs? Dogs have their own way of communicating with one another. This language unfortunately we do not understand whatsoever, but your dog doesn’t realize it’s not coming in loud and clear when it expresses itself.
Now here’s a list of common clues that it might be time for a trip outside for the puppy. Pacing back and forth, circling around excessively, and whining consistently with no obviously reason what’s bothering them. Also, sniffing around when you have no other new animals in the house for which it might feel the need to do that otherwise. If you see the dog going behind furniture, or to a part of the house where you cannot keep an eye on them. Alternatively, standing by or scratching at the door in any way.

The best way however to train your dog to let you know when it wants to go outside is to hang some type of reasonably loud bell on the door knob where it has access to reaching it if nothing else. This way you can have your dog ring the bell to associate it with going outside. This way if you’re in another room even then you can hear the dog needs to head outside to relieve itself.

Getting Ready for Training:

There are loads of obedience games you can play with your canine companion, and many of them incorporate visual and audible cues. Here are a couple great classics that are tried and proven to be useful. This collection of great games offers a wonderful chance to train at the same time your dog is doing its favorite activity, having fun with their owners and learning without realizing it.

Hide and seek is a fun game from our childhood, but what you might not realize is your dog will absolutely love it. Not to mention the dog needs to use its senses to find you. Your animal has a natural instinct to hunt and search so finding you is a very rewarding experience for it as well. To ensure your dog gets a challenge in this activity its best to play in a large yard or fenced in area so it wont run off and loose focus.

You will first need to ask your dog to stay, and then hide in a nearby place to make it easy at first. Say whatever word you use to get your dog to come over to you after telling it to stay. Your dog should have no problem finding you since you didn’t hide in a difficult place. Now here is where treats can come in handy if your dog has a favorite one I would use it to reward them. You should make sure you increase the difficulty of the game so your dog gets the most out of it.

Now, this game teaches your dog tremendous self-control and patience. Most of you should be familiar with the old street corner game three-card Monte? Well this is oddly reminiscent of that game. To play it, you need your dog’s favorite treats and three cups. As far as indoor games go, this one offers great entertainment. Be careful however, that your dog doesn’t try and chew on the plastic cups.

I do recommend before you play this game with your dog you set it up ahead of time and have the cups on the table. Then, show your dog the treat so it’s clear what they’re playing to get. If you want to be cute you can tell them not to look while you place it under the cup. It likely doesn’t matter if they see where you put it though. Lastly, move the cups around and try and confuse your dog. Then watch as they use their senses to locate the treat under the correct. As always make sure you let them know they did a great job when they find it, that positive reinforcement is what they thrive on, use it to your advantage.

There are my couple suggestions for games to play. Always play in a safe area, not out in the street where cars can come flying past. Always keep a bottle of water handy, if your not home playing in the yard, and you’re in a park for example they will thank you for it.

Besides the obvious guarding, growling and biting many dogs display a variety of dominant behaviors that commonly go unrecognized by their owners. Very rarely will a dog display his highest level of dominance overnight. There are usually signs leading up to it over course of a few years. Dominant alpha dogs won’t always growl and bite. If you the owner are giving the dog what he wants, there sometimes is no reason for the dog to growl or bite unless they feel challenged.

Dogs generally understand that they exist in a human world. After all, who feeds them and opens the door for them to go outside to potty? When humans perform these tasks on demand from the dog though, why wouldn’t the dog think they’re the leader? It is easy for dogs to get the impression they are alpha in their pack. There are many alpha dog behaviors that are not acceptable in human society, such as biting, which is a communication tactic that a dog may use. It is very important for humans to remain the leaders over their dogs.

Just looking at a dog and the way he presents himself can be a sign for what frame of mind the dog is in. A more dominant dog will walk high and proud, puffing themselves out as much as they can. He carries himself with what looks like dignity to the untrained eye.

Submissive dogs on the other hand carry themselves in very much the opposite way. They hold their heads low with shoulders and tail down, in a sense making them smaller. Generally, it will appear that a submissive dog is a sad dog. Not so, the posture of these submissive dogs is telling all around them that they do not wish to challenge any other dog or that they come in peace. Dogs are animals that will fight amongst each other naturally. This means their natural defense is to fight when they feel threatened. That is why they make it as obvious as possible when they do not wish to have an altercation of any kind.

Since dominant dogs look so proud and submissive dogs look sad since they hold their heads low, it’s no wonder so many people have dominant dogs. When their dog acts submissive they mistake that for a sad dog. When their dog acts dominant they mistake it for a happy proud dog.

Allowing your dog to beg is a common training mistake. A dog that has never received food from you when you are eating at the table will no longer continue to beg. He might try it once or twice early on in your relationship. With consistent “no’s” and “go lay down” commands will quickly discourage him from further attempts. However, if you give in, even just once and give him a piece of you are eating, he’ll know that begging worked. Therefore, with common sense, your dog will gain the idea that what works once, will eventually work again.

Inconsistency may seem like such a small thing, but it may leave you destined to fail. Constantly measured attention is absolutely essential when training your dog. Deviate away from any routine you may have built up will almost always undo all that hard work you have done previous.

Calling your dog for punishment will not get you anywhere. Let us focus on why it’s not good to call your dog to your side in order to get mad at him. Nobody wants to go over to someone when they know they are going to get in trouble. This is even true with adults, children, and especially a dog. People know you’re not likely to forget your anger, but a dog is hopeful, and will try everything to avoid you if he knows you’re angry. In your dogs mind, every time you call him to you in order to do something unpleasant, you are punishing him for returning to you. So, if your dog is in trouble, or you have to do something he won’t like, go and get him, instead of calling him.

Rewarding the wrong behavior will happen to all of us at some point or another. This is one of the most common mistakes made when dog training. You may not even think of it as necessarily rewarding your dog. You may see it as a method of comforting him when he’s frightened, or perhaps letting him in when he barks, or even giving him a stern talking to when ever he misbehaves. Attention of any kind when a dog misbehaves is a signal to the dog. The dog may interpret this attention as this works, it’s not quite what I was looking for, but it’s still some kind of attention.” Even negative attention may seem better than none at all.