Help! My Dog Has Cancer

Nearly every dog owner wants to teach their dog properly.  However, nearly an equal number seriously misjudge the amount of time and discipline it takes to teach a dog.  This results in a familiar set of missteps that are often made that could, with more or less effort, be totally avoided.

Dogs should not be considered hairy kids.  Even though the typical dog has the mental development of a two year old child, there are more contrasts than similarities.  While dogs are amazing at processing language, they are unable to reason as people do.  They can’t put together cause and effect the way people do.

For example, when you tell your dog to “go lie down” you may want him to head to his sofa dog bed or kennel .  In the beginning, if you don’t assist him to make the association between the command and his dog bedding by bodily taking him there as you are giving the command, you are setting him up for failure.

This can start being exceedingly frustrating as the same command is repeated over and over, and the dog appears to reject the commands.  usually it is not ignoring the command; it is likely that they don’t understand it.  It seems it should be straightforward because they’ve displayed the right behavior many times before, but today they are being headstrong.

Some dogs probably would be called headstrong if they were people.  However, they can be thrown off easily or not be able to connect the command of “sit” today with yesterday’s behavior and subsequent reward.  There are some likely explanations for this behavior.

Patience is the one quality that dog owners need to have.  You must be able to repeat those same commands over and over again, knowing that there are times when you won’t get the results you await and are looking for.  There are many dogs that may take up to two years to start processing commands past the most basic to the degree that it really sticks.

Don’t forget that patience means that you keep your temper when what you actually want is to smack or yell at your dog.  It’s common to think about taking the easy route of corporal punishment as the first reaction for improving the dog’s behavior.  On the other hand, this should be reserved for only the most serious situations.  The dog doesn’t really comprehend why they’re being swatted.  This will not develop into trust, but to the contrary fear.

In addition, dogs are like humans because they also will more readily listen to those that are trusted than those that are feared.  They only follow those that they fear when they have no other choice.  But dogs make choices very differently than people do.  They usually endure any punishment they experience without actually learning from it.  Corporal punishment is not a useful training technique.

Here’s how NOT to Teach your dog:

•  Fail to remember that your dog processes information differently than humans and speak to them like they were people.

•  Hold to the idea that a dog can connect events across time and situationsdraw the same conclusion as you.

•  Get angry and irritable when they don’t behave as you want them to. Punish them for not behaving the way you want.

Follow these altogether useless methods and you’ll end up with a messed up dog and you will be an unhappy owner. But if this isn’t the outcome you are looking for, be ready to adjust YOUR behavior, before you try to change the behavior of the dog.