Dog Obedience Training: Common Sources of Your Dog’s Problematic Behaviors
Solving problematic behaviors — chewing, dog barking, digging, and dog biting, for instance — is of the utmost importance when training your dog. There are many dog obedience training techniques to consider when attempting to curb your dog’s unruliness. Individual dogs respond differently to the various methods. Ingenuity and creativity are often a trainer’s best asset. There isn’t an all-in-one manual for dog trainers to refer to. They must decide which technique is going to be the most effective based on the primary ideology of dog training — identifying the source of the unwanted behaviors. Below are a few:
Lack of Communication
Lack of communication, or miscommunication, is a common cause of problematic behavior in dogs. With a frontal lobe much smaller than our own, dogs are forced to learn by association. You must help them make these associations because they lack the ability to make many deductions. When a dog is offered a treat, it immediately assumes the master appreciated its most recent behavior and makes a connection between that behavior and the dog owner’s response. This is pretty self-explanatory, but many dog owners are unaware of this and fail to use this association technique to their advantage. Worse even, some owners end up rewarding their dogs at inappropriate times, instigating more disruptive behavior. This leads to a frustrated and irritable master, which your dog can easily pick up on. This can cause its problematic behaviors to multiply.
Dog Separation Anxiety
You must know the source of your dog’s problematic behaviors if you expect to make any progress with its training. Separation anxiety is one of the more serious issues and not always the easiest to alleviate, especially when you, the dog owner, live alone. Dogs, like their human counterparts, are social by nature. For thousands of years, they’ve hunted in packs and because of this they will always welcome the praise of their master. If you, the master, disappear for the day, though, how will your absence be handled by your dog? Many dogs will bark incessantly and some would chew door frames. Whatever the case may be, your dog will experience separation anxiety at some point, and you need to be prepared to handle it.
Inconsistency
Consistency is your best asset when training a dog. When you witness your dog committing an unacceptable behavior, leap to action. Discipline must come swiftly and regularly. You must maintain your dog’s association with its bad behavior and punishment. For instance, your dog may begin to chew the carpet — totally unacceptable. Carpet isn’t a chew toy and carpet isn’t cheap. You correct your dog’s behavior and continue about your business. Then an hour later you discover the dog consuming one of your children’s old sandals. This causes you to chuckle and you don’t discipline the dog. From your dog’s perspective, the act of “chewing” is not “bad”. It now believes there are items it can or cannot chew and begins chewing everything in an effort to discover which is acceptable and which is not.
Leadership Challenge
Canines are pre-programmed to challenge the leadership of their pack-leader. Unfortunately, as the owner, this problem is yours to deal with. Your dog doesn’t do this out of spite, though, but out of a natural instinct to survive; your dog is reassuring itself. It wants to know that the leader it recognizes is a powerful and fair leader that can be trusted no matter the situation or need. Obedience training is crucial because of this trait. You must be able to demonstrate that you are your dog’s master.
Have a great “dog training” day,
Dr. Alfonso
