Family Dog Training

Welcome to family dog training center online!

Today I would like to talk about the essence of family dog training - pack leadership… Now, I know what you think - easier said than done, and I agree – it’s way easier.

But first of all, what does being a pack leader mean? Well… simple enough it means you’re the boss- the one calling the shots. Right now your dog thinks that he/she  is the head of the family. “Ridiculous, I put food in his bowl. How can he think that?” Dogs think diffrently than us – and unless you act by their rules you won’t have a fully trained dog. I mean, sure, if you will teach him the commands using positive dog training (telling him the command and then giving him a treat) he will probably follow it during lesson time. But unless you’re a pack leader, when you’ll give the command in a real situation (e.g. he just saw a cat he loves to chase) he won’t respond.

Infact not long ago my dog did’t respond either. He would  do good on training time, but as soos as he was off-leash and he heard/saw a cat, he would start runing after it and nothing I could say or do would make him stop.

The secret is, in my opinion, to rip out and unwanted behavior from the dog from it’s root.  Respond loudly and exagerrate on any bad behavior – leash pulling, jumping on the sofas, jumping on the table etc. Shout “NO!!!” as loudly as you can (the neighbors can go to hell when it comes to our family dog training) , make sure they understand that this kind of behavior wouldn’t be acceptable again. Don’t just say “no…” or “stop it” like they’re supposed to understande they make you upset. Dogs respond to sound (those big fluffy ears are there for something…), so you have to use your throat and be assertive. If every time they do something wrong you’ll shout and make a scene all over again, you will see improvement.

As one member of the family must take responsibility on the obedience training, all member of the family must take responsibilty  on the dog behavior training (jumping on sofas/table/beds etc). Evenyually the dog must become a follower of the pack – not the leader.

The thing to remember about dog training is that the little things are what dogs respond to the most. For you it’s just anouther time of them trying to steal your food, but for them, if you didn’t react fast enough and loud enough, it’s like you’re saying stealing food is OK.

Start acting now!

Tags: dog behavior, family dog training, training tips

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am and is filed under dog training help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.