Teaching Your Friend – Top tips for communicating with your dog!
Your pup just wants to be your friend. It’s all about communication.
Having a dog is like having a friend from another planet. You both want to get on, but you just don’t know how to communicate. Training a dog is about breaking that barrier of communication and it’s something that’s not as difficult as it seems.
For a long time, people have assumed that training a dog is all about showing it who’s boss. Who’s ‘dominant’ and who’s ‘in charge’, and while they still have some of those psychological traits from their wolf days, they need to be trained differently to a wild animal. Every time that you’re interacting with your friend, you’re going to be sending off signals of approval and disapproval and one of the best ways that you can encourage the right behaviour is to reward your friend when he does something that you approve of and ignore them when they do something that you disapprove of.
Treats are a great way to reward your dog’s positive behaviour!
So when you’re training your friend, you should make sure that you’ve always got treats on hand so that when the moment comes, you’re ready to shower them with praise and affection. This will create those important connections in their brain. When we reward them for something that we approve of, we’re giving a strong reinforcement that they did the right thing.
Dogs crave this sort of approval from their ‘leader’ and they will be looking to you to guide that behaviour. It’s important to be firm and show them that you’re not impressed when they do things that you disapprove of but be careful not to give them too much attention. If you give them attention, they might misunderstand you and then continue to carry that behaviour out in the future – you can see how this can become a problem!
There are lots of cheap and affordable ways to reward your pet, one of the best way is to just use inexpensive dog treats that you can easily carry around in your pocket. The burst of flavour and the act of chewing will really stimulate them. But remember that there is no substitute for some audible praise and a good stroke!
So when you’re training your friend, you should make sure that you’ve always got treats on hand so that when the moment comes, you’re ready to shower them with praise and affection. This will create those important connections in their brain. When we reward them for something that we approve of, we’re giving a strong reinforcement that they did the right thing.
Dogs crave this sort of approval from their ‘leader’ and they will be looking to you to guide that behaviour. It’s important to be firm and show them that you’re not impressed when they do things that you disapprove of but be careful not to give them too much attention. If you give them attention, they might misunderstand you and then continue to carry that behaviour out in the future – you can see how this can become a problem!
There are lots of cheap and affordable ways to reward your pet, one of the best way is to just use inexpensive dog treats that you can easily carry around in your pocket. The burst of flavour and the act of chewing will really stimulate them. But remember that there is no substitute for some audible praise and a good stroke!
Treats are a great way to reward your dog’s positive behaviour!
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