PURPOSE: To provide dog training guidelines for the family to follow which will enhance their dog’s training program.
1. Use your dog’s dry kibble food as a motivator in training. Instead of the dog getting food for free in it’s bowl, place the daily food portion in a zip lock bag. If five out of seven days, the dog has to work for his/her food by showing good manners (sit, down, come, etc.), your dog’s obedience will improve dramatically. Save the treats for times your dog has to work amongst high level distractions. But everyday training can be done with the dog’s own dog food.
2. Reward good or desired behavior via food, treats, toys, calm petting and calm praise.
3. Try to ignore undesired behavior as what is not reinforced tends to go away (obviously a fair verbal correction can be given for something totally unacceptable but the focus should be on looking for and rewarding good behavior).
4. If you catch your dog in the act of doing something undesired such as chewing a pillow or messing in the house, you can verbally correct your dog and then tell them what to do such as come and be sure to reward the come. Then you have to plan to better supervise your dog so it doesn’t happen again in the future. If you don’t catch your dog in the act (such as it occurred a few seconds ago and now your dog is starting to walk toward you upon seeing you) of the misdoing, it is too late to verbally correct your dog. If you do at this late juncture, your dog will think it’s being corrected for coming and not what he was doing that was bad a few seconds ago. Correcting a dog for coming will teach him/her it is not always safe to come to you.
5. Always make it safe and happy for your dog to come to you.