Living with a dog is a most rewarding experience for the vast majority of people who have lived or live with one of these animals. And it is that these faithful companions are always with us, both in good and bad times, to offer us their disproportionate and infinite appreciation. However, to achieve a harmonious coexistence with our furry, it is necessary that our dog obey us.
For this reason, it is possible that many times you have wondered how to teach your dog to obey, because it is common for day-to-day situations in which it does not quite understand us, and even prefers to ignore us. To this end, in this article, we want to give you some tips so you can get your dog to listen to you.
Basic obedience for dogs
Receiving a new canine member into your home is truly satisfying, but it is also a great responsibility. When you adopt a dog, you have to make sure that you can provide all the care it needs, in addition to providing it with adequate socialization and education. This last point is fundamental, since a dog that does not attend to a basic obedience, in the long term usually develops behavior problems that can make coexistence difficult.
We must understand that education serves to create a form of communication with our dog, since we are different species and therefore our language is also. That is, although our dog is intelligent and can understand us in many aspects (for example, it knows when we are sad or happy), in many situations we fall into the trap of mistakenly believing that our dog understands what we are saying or that he has done something. Wrong. If, for example, our puppy takes the shoe to play, it could be the case that we chase him to take it off and he understands that we are playing with him, but then once we have reached him, we take it off and scold him.
From our human reasoning, we may see our action coherent, but in the eyes of your dog, you are just a spoiler to avoid when he is having fun with something. This fact changes drastically if instead of chasing him, we have educated him to come when we call him, we have taught him to let go of the shoe and we reward him by playing with something that he can entertain himself with.
As we have seen in the example, the fact that we teach him some previous instructions, will allow him to understand us easily, and will not give rise to confusion and contradictions, which generate in our hairy stress and detachment towards us.
Tips for a dog to obey
If you wonder why my dog does not pay attention to me, here are some tips to keep in mind so that your dog obeys you:
Have a clear goal with your dog
Before taking in a dog, get an idea of what you are looking for in him. Do you just want a dog to keep you company? Or maybe you want to be able to teach him various tricks and exercises? Each dog has its own characteristics and predisposition to learning , for this reason, it would be contradictory, for example, to have a dog that needs a lot of physical and mental activity (like a collie) and not provide it. Or, in the opposite case, have an older dog and pretend that it learns a lot of different tricks in a short time.
Educate from day one
If you have welcomed your dog as a puppy, you must understand that everything he learns at this stage will determine his adult phase. Puppies are in a constant process of learning from everything that surrounds them in their environment and from our interactions with them. For this reason, you should teach him everything that you think is necessary for when he is an adult.
For example, do not let him jump on you now that he is small, because when he grows up, if he is a large dog, he could possibly throw someone to the ground and hurt him. In the same way, if you do not want him to get on the sofa, do not let him now that he is a puppy and teach him to stretch in his bed, but when he is an adult he will have this ingrained behavior and it will be contradictory for him that you do not let him do it.
Constancy and patience
The learning process can be slow and tedious many times, but for this reason we do not have to get angry. We must be understanding and interact with our dog with a positive frame of mind to build trust.
In the same way, in this process we must be constant. Our interactions with him must always be routine and repetitive, so that our dog understands that there is a cause-effect in his actions. That is to say, going back to the example of whether or not we let him get on the sofa: if we are not clear and, therefore, sometimes we let him climb and sometimes not, he simply will not understand if he can do it or not, and finally he will do it when want. Now, if we have the habit of letting him go up after saying the word “go up”, he will learn that he can only do so when we give him this command.
It also often happens that there are several relatives in the home and that each one has different ways of interacting with the dog, which usually causes confusion. For this reason, it is very important to agree on the education methodology of your dog to be consistent.
Suggest simple exercises
We must always start learning simply. We cannot expect our dog to learn complex commands from one day to the next, but we must start with instructions that it can understand and carry out easily, and little by little, increase the difficulty.
For example, if we want to teach him to be still while you are away, first ask him to be immobile for a few seconds while you are near. Progressively increase the duration and distance between you and him, as he understands and rewards him. On the contrary, you will not achieve anything if you want that from the first day it remains completely immobile while you are 5 meters away.
Make sure your dog is comfortable
Before we start educating our dog, we must make sure that it is well, that is, that its physical and psychological well-being is covered. We cannot pretend to teach him not to pull on the leash, if he does not exercise enough and is agitated, for example. In the same way, we must make sure that you do not have any ailment or pathology that prevents you from performing an exercise.
Finally, during the sessions in which we want to teach him something, it is important that we do not overwhelm him. Especially in the beginning, about 10-20 minutes of training will be enough to get you used to the routine and to be receptive during the activity. We must avoid losing interest in us, as it will be more likely to disobey us, and therefore, it will be counterproductive to learning.
Positive reinforcement in dogs
The positive reinforcement in dogs is a good tool to educate our furry. How does it work? If every time our dog understands us and obeys or performs an appropriate behavior (such as relieving himself outside the home) you give him a treat, a compliment or a caress, he will internalize that he has done something good and will repeat it more frequently. At the same time, he will see us as someone nice and trustworthy.
Avoid punishment
Many times, we tend to scold our dog disproportionately for behaviors that are understandable, since they are part of their nature. Fact that as a consequence generates discomfort and detachment towards us.
Imagine that we go for a walk in the park and our furry due to its hunting instinct begins to run after a pigeon. If in this situation we scold him, we will only get him to ignore us and not want to come to our call. Why is he going to come back to us if chasing the pigeon is more fun than us? Now, if we have taught him through positive reinforcement to ignore moving objects and animals and redirect this behavior into something fun, like playing with us, he will most likely stay by our side or more easily obey when we call him .
