Dog Behavior Questions - Is Your Behavior Ruining Your Training?

One of the biggest dog behavior questions centers around training style. Your training style and attitude greatly affects your success of training your dog. Sometimes more so than your dogs attitude does!.

Training your dog is one of the most difficult and possibly frustrating tasks you can undertake. The only activity that requires more patience is raising human children. Many people don't have enough patience in themselves to train their dogs. Therefore, while you are training your dog, you may have to train yourself to be patient as well.

When training your dog, keep in mind that daily sessions are needed to reinforce the desired behavior you want. Half an hour to an hour time slots will be most rewarding. Remember that no matter how much time has gone by, if you are starting to lose your control or your patience you must end your training session.

You'll need to find the right length of a training session for your pet and perhaps work on expanding it. You have to remember you are dealing with a dog which has the attention span of about a two year old. Different breeds and individual dogs differ in their attention span as well.

In nature, dogs live in a hierarchical social structure, and many dog behavior questions can be answered by this. In their society, there is typically 1 leader in the "pack" - the alpha dog. In your house, you are the leader of the back. You must remember this when training and not let the dog take a leadership role.

When giving commands, be firm, but do not yell. Do not get angry with your dog when they do not obey. Rather than becoming frustrated with your dog, persist in your practice. Also, do not let the dog become the alpha of your pack. Your goal in training should not be to stroke your ego or to feel like you have power over your dog. The goal should be to have a safer environment for your dog and your family.

This won't an always be easy - some dogs are natural leaders. But an even in purely wild packs that role can and does change an among and an individuals when the more assertive an individual insists on taking it. Be consistent don't give up and your dog will follow your orders.

No matter how well you train your dog, your dog still has a mind of its own and won't always follow the commands you issue. You and your dog will get frustrated if you expect him to learn a command with too few repetitions or to always perfectly follow one that you taught him before. Your dog does not have the same memory as a human. It is even different from very young humans. Get to know your dog. Acknowledge your dog's unique qualities, his learning capability, and any limitations he may have.

Remember when training your dog to take his breed into consideration along with his age. All dogs are unique and have their own personality. You need to work with your dogs traits whether he is naturally lazy, inattentive, or a youthful pup.

The best way to train your dog is by working with their unique personality traits. Do not yell at your dog needlessly or use strong physical punishment whenever they don't immediately obey. This will not help train your dog. In the end, training is about building trust with your dog so that he will obey you by choice rather than through fear.

About the Author

Lee Dobbins is an avid dog lover who has owned many different types of dogs from a 90 pound Shepherd mix to a pure bred Pomeranian. She shares her years of research and experience in an Ebook and newsletter which you can download for FREE at http://www.dogcareandtrainingtips.com.