Dog Training Tips

You just got yourself a new dog. It’s adorable, except for one tiny problem: it doesn’t listen to you. Plus, it doesn’t know any tricks, besides licking itself in inappropriate places (and in public). How do you get your dog to listen to you?

The situation above is common enough for most first-time dog owners. But even “experienced” dog owners can run into a few snags here and there. The reason is usually because the owner never bothered with the many tips on dog training while their dog was still a puppy.

The result? Poop on your new pair of sneakers. Urine on the carpet. Oh, woe! Is there an end to all this?

No problem! With just a few dog training tips, you should be able to get your dog to behave properly while in the house, teach it proper toilet manners, and just do as you say.

Dogs Understand Simple Commands

Dogs are intelligent creatures. Countless scientific studies have shown that a dog has basically the same intelligence level as a three-year-old child. Moreover, some breeds exhibit a degree of intelligence higher than that.

A three-year-old child can understand basic commands and pick up when the person in charge (the parent) is displeased about what the child has done. A dog reacts in pretty much the same way. Commands like “sit,” “no,” “fetch,” and “roll over” are simple enough for a dog to understand.

When teaching a dog with proper manners, force should never be used. Yelling doesn’t work either. When you yell, a dog can usually pick up that you are angry and will start to act all subservient in the hopes that you will feel better and not yell anymore. However, this does not really teach your dog anything good besides faking a subservient manner when you’re mad and then go back to behaving badly when you are not looking.

Dog Owners Should Understand Their Dogs

Now that you know your dog does understand a few things, it is time for you to do your part. That is, understand your dog. You might think you do, but the first step to understanding your dog is to accept this one important fact: your dog is…a dog. And as a dog, the only things it cares about are: you, food, and play, usually in that order.

Once you have that fact down, the next stage in tips on dog training is to think like a pack animal. Why? Because that’s what your dog is: a pack animal. And if you want to teach your dog something, you have to think like him or her first.

So what’s the most important thing about pack animals? Let’s see. A pack needs a leader, someone whom the rest of the members look up to. Of course, this leads to you establishing yourself as the pack leader if you want your dog to listen to you and obey your commands.

Establishing yourself as the alpha in your strange little pack of family and pet should be made a part of puppy training tips. However, it works fairly well even when the dog is already fully grown or adult.

To be an effective pack leader, you need to be firm and consistent with your dog. That means adopting a strict, no-messing-with-the-rules attitude. This might turn out to be more difficult than you think. Because your dog has…ways of tugging at the heartstrings. Ignore it. Even if your dog is the cutest thing in the world. To get your dog to behave, a dog training tip is adopt a firm attitude.

Consistency is just as important. Because you want your dog to understand through repetitive lessons that this is wrong and that is right, this is the pooping area, that is the shoe rack, and so on and so forth.