Alice White
Some owners, starting to train dogs, think: well, what’s so difficult? And they are very surprised when faced with difficulties. And sometimes dogs are taught not at all what we would like. And when they turn to specialists, they don’t know who to choose, and they make a mistake, trusting the wrong person.
What do you have to learn by teaching a dog?
First of all, you need to understand how dogs see the world. And what influences their behavior. Do not consider them through the prism of human perception, do not hang labels, and do not attribute motives and emotions that are not characteristic of dogs, but understand the behavior of pets. Many things will surprise you.
It is necessary to learn to understand your own dog, to appreciate its individuality. Know what she loves and what doesn’t. What does she want at this particular moment? What emotions does she feel? This will help you build the right training system and create motivation to cooperate with you.
We’ll have to study how living things in general and dogs in particular learn. How to structure classes correctly. How to explain the problem and increase the difficulty. When to reward your dog. How to understand that she is tired or does not feel well, or she is not interested.
It is worth developing the speed of reaction. Because how timely you reinforce this or that action will depend on what exactly the dog learns. And sometimes the second is important. Dogs cannot read minds, but they learn quickly and try to do what we “buy” from them.
It is important to be patient. And at the same time, exercise reasonable persistence. And also learn to act consistently. If you have trouble with this, there are likely to be complications in dog training. So it is necessary to “pump” these “muscles”.
Remember, specific ways of teaching a particular command are not as important as the approach. Any skill can be taught to an animal in many different ways. For example, when I was studying zoopsychology, one of the first tasks was to come up with 7 different ways to teach a dog the Sit command. So, if you learn the basics, it won’t be difficult to figure out exactly how to form the right skill in a four-legged friend.
