Dog Training-Setting Limits For Your Dog
In dog training, If you don't set limits with your dog, he will pay for your lack of leadership with a loss of freedom and you will pay with frustration. The very heart of dog training is setting limits in order that you and your dog can live a free, safe and happy lives together. However, if your approach to dog training lacks emotional equilibrium, your dog will suffer for your imbalance.
At that critical moment when you walk into the bedroom and find your best pair of shoes laying on the floor, still hot with your dog's saliva, what do you do? Do you think to yourself; he'll never understand what I'm correcting him for since I didn't actually catch him in the act? Or do you think yelling at him will do the trick? Maybe you lose control of your emotions, roll up the nearest newspaper and start hitting him with it. The question is, how do you know when to correct your dog? And if you do have to correct, what form of correction should be used? Think about it this way. You only correct your dog when he breaks the rules you have established. At first, the corrections should be light. After several repetitions, if he still defies you or escalates his behavior, you start escalating the intensity of the corrections with each repetition.
It is important to remember that you and only you decide which behaviors are appropriate and which ones are not appropriate in your house and environment. In your house, it may be perfectly acceptable for your dog to jump up on the bed without being invited first. On the other hand, your next door neighbor may have a completely different set of rules for his dog.
Dog training consists of two basic phases:
Making the association
Repetition
In order to train a dog properly, you have to be fair. Your dog has to learn that he can trust you and that you're not going to go crazy if he makes a mistake he didn't know was wrong. So before you apply consequences to actions, it's only fair to give your dog the heads-up on what the rules are. Therefore, training a dog properly involves teaching him right from wrong, then repeating it over and over until he understands that the best course of action is the one you have directed him toward.
The emotional hurdle
One of the reasons it is so difficult to maintain emotional equilibrium, is because living with a dog involves emotion. However, if you get angry and lose control every time your dog does something wrong, you will never end up with a balanced, stable dog. When emotion is high, rationale is low. Losing your composure with your dog is not going to accomplish anything productive. Keep in mind, it will only take a second to make the mistake in the first place, but it will take infinitely longer to repair the damage done. Because of the emotions involved with training a dog and the consequences of making bad decisions regarding your dog's correction, it is critical you control your emotions throughout the training process.
The two primary questions
The question of how to set limits is really a question of whether to praise or correct your dog at any given moment. Knowing how and when to correct and praise is absolutely critical in molding a well trained, balanced dog. For example, if you correct your dog for making a mistake motivated out of fear, you will most certainly make him even more fearful. On the other hand, if you praise your dog for being sneaky or stubborn, he is likely to get more sneaky and stubborn.
In order to determine whether or not to correct your dog for something, ask yourself two questions: Is your dog doing something you don't want him to do? And does your dog intellectually understand what you expect of him? If you have made the proper associations with your dog and he still makes the wrong choice, he gets a correction. It's very black and white. If he makes the right choice, he gets praised and if he makes the wrong choice, he gets corrected. However, just because your dog makes a poor choice does not mean you should apply a hard correction. Small mistake, small correction. Big mistake, big correction. Big mistakes are behaviors that destroy or endanger. Destroying your property or endangering himself or others by running away or being aggressive are examples of big mistakes.
Let's look at a hypothetical scenario. You are standing in the kitchen making a sandwich and you tell your dog to leave the kitchen by saying "away" and he ignores you. The first thing you need to do is to ask yourself the two primary questions. Is my dog doing something I don't want him to do? And secondly, does my dog understand what I'm asking him to do? In other words, have I made the proper association between the word "away" and leaving the kitchen. If the answer to those two questions is yes, it is time to correct your dog with a leash and a collar. Now that you have made the decision to correct, you have to calmly get the leash, put it on your dog and gently correct him out of the kitchen. At first, the correction should be very light. Your goal is to modify your dog's behavior without correcting him any harder than is absolutely necessary. Once he is out of the kitchen, you should praise him. If your dog turns and immediately walks back in the kitchen after correcting him the first time, calmly attach the leash and correct him out of the kitchen again while you repeat the command "away". Once he is out of the kitchen, praise him again. This process should repeat itself until your dog decides to respect your request.
If this process results in your dog up getting a couple firm corrections, it will have been his choice not yours. You began by making the association with him and correcting him very mildly, but he decided that it wasn't enough to make him change his choice. Apparently, his drive to stay in the kitchen and watch you make your sandwich exceeded the deterrent value of the lighter, initial corrections. As you gradually escalated the deterrent value of the corrections, the extent of his stubbornness became clear. Only when the severity of the correction reached a point he was no longer willing to tolerate, did he begin to comply with your request. However, The choice about many times the exercise was repeated was ultimately his.
It is no different than teaching your dog to sit on command. You make the association so he knows what you want him to do, then allow him to make the choice between praise or correction.
In conclusion, you asked yourself the two primary questions, found the answers to be yes, and proceeded down the road of escalating correction until your dog changed his choice. It is important to note that if your dog would have respected your simple wishes after only one light correction, he would never have been corrected any harder than that. This is the process that will teach your dog accountability. Through this process of correction and praise, your dog will not only learn that outright defiance will get him nowhere but also, that he ultimately determines his own destiny. If he decides to tolerate the little inconveniences in life and make the right choices, there will be no unpleasant consequences.
At that critical moment when you walk into the bedroom and find your best pair of shoes laying on the floor, still hot with your dog's saliva, what do you do? Do you think to yourself; he'll never understand what I'm correcting him for since I didn't actually catch him in the act? Or do you think yelling at him will do the trick? Maybe you lose control of your emotions, roll up the nearest newspaper and start hitting him with it. The question is, how do you know when to correct your dog? And if you do have to correct, what form of correction should be used? Think about it this way. You only correct your dog when he breaks the rules you have established. At first, the corrections should be light. After several repetitions, if he still defies you or escalates his behavior, you start escalating the intensity of the corrections with each repetition.
It is important to remember that you and only you decide which behaviors are appropriate and which ones are not appropriate in your house and environment. In your house, it may be perfectly acceptable for your dog to jump up on the bed without being invited first. On the other hand, your next door neighbor may have a completely different set of rules for his dog.
Dog training consists of two basic phases:
Making the association
Repetition
In order to train a dog properly, you have to be fair. Your dog has to learn that he can trust you and that you're not going to go crazy if he makes a mistake he didn't know was wrong. So before you apply consequences to actions, it's only fair to give your dog the heads-up on what the rules are. Therefore, training a dog properly involves teaching him right from wrong, then repeating it over and over until he understands that the best course of action is the one you have directed him toward.
The emotional hurdle
One of the reasons it is so difficult to maintain emotional equilibrium, is because living with a dog involves emotion. However, if you get angry and lose control every time your dog does something wrong, you will never end up with a balanced, stable dog. When emotion is high, rationale is low. Losing your composure with your dog is not going to accomplish anything productive. Keep in mind, it will only take a second to make the mistake in the first place, but it will take infinitely longer to repair the damage done. Because of the emotions involved with training a dog and the consequences of making bad decisions regarding your dog's correction, it is critical you control your emotions throughout the training process.
The two primary questions
The question of how to set limits is really a question of whether to praise or correct your dog at any given moment. Knowing how and when to correct and praise is absolutely critical in molding a well trained, balanced dog. For example, if you correct your dog for making a mistake motivated out of fear, you will most certainly make him even more fearful. On the other hand, if you praise your dog for being sneaky or stubborn, he is likely to get more sneaky and stubborn.
In order to determine whether or not to correct your dog for something, ask yourself two questions: Is your dog doing something you don't want him to do? And does your dog intellectually understand what you expect of him? If you have made the proper associations with your dog and he still makes the wrong choice, he gets a correction. It's very black and white. If he makes the right choice, he gets praised and if he makes the wrong choice, he gets corrected. However, just because your dog makes a poor choice does not mean you should apply a hard correction. Small mistake, small correction. Big mistake, big correction. Big mistakes are behaviors that destroy or endanger. Destroying your property or endangering himself or others by running away or being aggressive are examples of big mistakes.
Let's look at a hypothetical scenario. You are standing in the kitchen making a sandwich and you tell your dog to leave the kitchen by saying "away" and he ignores you. The first thing you need to do is to ask yourself the two primary questions. Is my dog doing something I don't want him to do? And secondly, does my dog understand what I'm asking him to do? In other words, have I made the proper association between the word "away" and leaving the kitchen. If the answer to those two questions is yes, it is time to correct your dog with a leash and a collar. Now that you have made the decision to correct, you have to calmly get the leash, put it on your dog and gently correct him out of the kitchen. At first, the correction should be very light. Your goal is to modify your dog's behavior without correcting him any harder than is absolutely necessary. Once he is out of the kitchen, you should praise him. If your dog turns and immediately walks back in the kitchen after correcting him the first time, calmly attach the leash and correct him out of the kitchen again while you repeat the command "away". Once he is out of the kitchen, praise him again. This process should repeat itself until your dog decides to respect your request.
If this process results in your dog up getting a couple firm corrections, it will have been his choice not yours. You began by making the association with him and correcting him very mildly, but he decided that it wasn't enough to make him change his choice. Apparently, his drive to stay in the kitchen and watch you make your sandwich exceeded the deterrent value of the lighter, initial corrections. As you gradually escalated the deterrent value of the corrections, the extent of his stubbornness became clear. Only when the severity of the correction reached a point he was no longer willing to tolerate, did he begin to comply with your request. However, The choice about many times the exercise was repeated was ultimately his.
It is no different than teaching your dog to sit on command. You make the association so he knows what you want him to do, then allow him to make the choice between praise or correction.
In conclusion, you asked yourself the two primary questions, found the answers to be yes, and proceeded down the road of escalating correction until your dog changed his choice. It is important to note that if your dog would have respected your simple wishes after only one light correction, he would never have been corrected any harder than that. This is the process that will teach your dog accountability. Through this process of correction and praise, your dog will not only learn that outright defiance will get him nowhere but also, that he ultimately determines his own destiny. If he decides to tolerate the little inconveniences in life and make the right choices, there will be no unpleasant consequences.
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