Training Tip: Key to good dog training is being able to read the dog and predict their actions if you can stay ahead of the dog you can keep them under control and catch them before they make mistakes.
Simple version: Dog barks/growls at person on the street.
What really happens: Dog looks, ears up, stiffens body, leans toward person/dog then barks.
You need to be able to redirect the attention, correct whatever you need to do to get the attention before the dog gets the stage of barking. If you redirect the attention at the lower stages that is training. If you just correct the dog for barking and growling the dog most likely will associate the correction with that which they are focused on and not their current behavior and you will need alot more force behind your correction because your dog is now in a high adrenalized state and reacting. Than if you had reminded your dog to pay attention to you in one of the early stages before the reaction.
Every time a dog gets ahead of you and makes mistakes like barking/growling and you don't catch it or aren't able to correct or redirect your dog it reinforces the behavior. The more your dog does it the more confident he/she will become doing it. A dog that runs to the door barking at guests if allowed to continue the behavior could turn into a bite in the future as they get more confident being allowed to practice it over and over.
Stay ahead of your dog. I thought about this, this morning after i wrote a post on my personal page about my new pup and about how wicked smart she is. She left her full food bowl to go to the bag of dog food and climbed up in it to eat instead of the full bowl. Im going to have fun keeping up with her and trying to stay ahead of her.
No comments:
Post a Comment