Ask Me A Question About Your Dog

Today I am writing about frequently asked questions and my approach to how to train your pet. As a professional Dog Trainer, I’m often asked questions like the following:

  • How do I make my dog listen?
  • How do I make my dog stop barking?
  • How do I stop my dog from pulling on the leash?
  • Why does my dog pee in the house?
  • Can you make my dog not jump on my guest?
  • How to stop my puppy from biting?
  • Can you train my dog?
  • How can I become the Alpha?

These are all great questions, and we need to look at each question a bit differently. Instead of focusing on what your dog is doing wrong, let’s look at it as how can I help my dog learn.

If we understand how a dog learns, I can better teach you how to help your pet. Our dogs learn by association and consequences. What I mean by that, your dog sees their world as safe/dangerous or what works/doesn’t work. They do not know what’s right and what’s wrong. So, now if we look at our questions again knowing how your pet learns it will help make it easier to figure out how to work with them.  Plus changing the wording of the questions takes the negativity out of it for us.  Then we do not look at working with our dogs as a chore.  Instead, we can help them learn!

  1. How do I make my dog listen? Vs. How can I help my dog want to listen? Motivation. We need to find a reason that they want to listen and work with us. Finding the right treats can go a long way into motivating them. Being in a group class around others is a great place to start learning how to get the attention of your pet and motivate them to want to pay attention and listen.
  2. How do I make my dog stop barking? Vs. Why does my dog bark? And how can I teach him not to? Dogs bark for all kinds of reasons. A person walked by, the Fed Ex truck came, the wind blew, they want you to play, or they saw a fly! Once we have a better idea of what triggers your pet to bark, we can help you teach them to stop. We would need to redirect their attention and praise them when they are quiet. However, remember this behavior has happened for a while, and it has worked for them. So it will take time to change the behavior. This may be something you want to work on one-on-one in a private session with a trainer versus a group class where the dog may be overwhelmed and react by barking.
  3. How do I stop my dog from pulling on the leash? Vs. How do I teach my dog to walk nicely on his leash? We need to teach them pulling doesn’t work for them, and a loose leash does. Sounds easy and I suggest start breaking this habit as you are walking if they begin to tighten the leash, change direction on them. It is a lot of back and forth until they learn pulling doesn’t work for them. We teach this technique in our group classes at Golrusk Pet Care as well as in private training.
  4. Why does my dog pee in the house? Vs. How can I help my dog understand that outside is the potty area? The easiest way to potty train is to make sure you are watching your dog for the cues they give before they have to go to the bathroom and to bring them out on a leash and reward them immediately when they have gone outside.
  5. Can you make my dog not jump on my guest? Vs. Why does my dog jump on people? How can we teach him not to? Most dogs jump to say hi to us. When they were little, we thought it was SOOO cute. Then they grew up, and we don’t want them to jump anymore. How confusing for your dog. Depending on the situation will dictate how we can help them break this habit we helped create. So, let’s say every time I walk into my house, the dog jumps on me. If I say off or no, I’m not teaching him, so I have to show him what the consequences are for this action. If I open the door and my dog goes to jump on me, I say to my dog “bad,” and I walk out the door closing it behind me. I do this over and over until it clicks in my dog's head that he won’t get my attention if he jumps on me. I have to do this every time I come home not just sometimes.  Look into our Kibbles and Bitz class at Golrusk, we work on impulse control with your dog.
  6. How to stop my puppy from biting? Vs. Why does my puppy bite? And how can we teach him not to bite? Puppies mouth because they don’t have hands! Plus, it gets attention, doesn’t it? The easiest way to make it go away is to ignore them, and I have a trick to do it! This is a topic we talk about in our puppy socialization classes.
  7. Can you train my dog? Vs. Can you help me train my dog? Yes, we can. We have many ways to help you and your dog learn together. We offer group classes, private training in-home, or here at Golrusk. We also, provide training during the day where you can drop your dog off for a few hours and the trainer works with your dog and gives you a write up of what was introduced to your dog so that you can work with them at home. 
  8. How can I become the Alpha? My answer to this question has always been why would you want to be? We don’t need to control our dogs we need to teach them how to live in our world. Remember they are dogs, not humans, and they have a different way of looking at the world than we do. Just imagen if a pride of lions came and brought you home with them for their pet. Would you understand them or their way of life? Now if they just used training methods to make you fearful of them, would you feel comfortable and loved? Our dogs do not speak our language and can not reason as we do. So, they need understanding, kindness, patience, consistency, and for us to teach, not force. The same way we should be with all people.
 

Thanks for reading

 

Tina Norton

Director of Training

Golrusk Pet Care Center