What behaviors does your dog do that you would prefer he doesn’t?
Are you actually teaching him these problem behaviors by rewarding them?
Ask yourself this question when working with your dog.
If your dog jumps up and you pet him you are actually rewarding the behavior.
You don’t mind, but you don’t want him jumping on friends?
Ask him to sit when you pet him instead, train an alternate behavior.
Your dog jumps up or scratches at your door to go out. You don’t want him to ruin your door so you open it up and let him out every time he does this.
You have trained another “bad” behavior.
Instead ask him to sit before you open the door for him. Your dog pulls, you don’t like it but figure he will stop once he gets to the thing he wants to see. You are well on your way to training pulling on the leash. Instead, if he starts to pull, you stop until he quits pulling.
Get the picture?
It’s really simple to shape proper behaviors when you learn to understand your dog better.
Nan Long, APDT
Now And Zen Dog Training
Now And Zen Dog Training 