I am a dog obedience trainer with two and a half years professional experience working with over 100 dogs in all 8 breed groups in 6-week group and private training classes. I have worked and volunteered in the pet industry for 8 years. My family consists of my three birds, Baby, Joon, and Eisley Mae, my cat, Sisu, and my 3-year-old collie, Gavin (CGC-in training), and my super supportive and fellow animal loving fiancé, Kyle, who will be joining us full-time after our wedding in May! :)
For my first post I want to briefly address what I feel to be the most important aspect of dog-human relationships and that is the dog's immense capacity for love and our responsibility to be patient and to make an effort to learn to "speak dog."
In her book "For the Love of a Dog" Dr. Patricia McConnell says "Dogs behave as though they expect us to be able to read their expressions accurately." That is probably one of the most powerful things I've ever read regarding dog training. When we react to a behavior, in most cases, we are encouraging it. For example: I ask Gavin to sit, he sits, I react with praise, Gavin is motivated to sit on cue. Another example: Gavin is barking his shadow when we go out for our nightly walk (why yes, he does this.), if I react by shouting "Gavin! Gavin! That's enough, BE QUIET!" he's not going to think "oh, okay mom, I'm sorry." Nope, he doesn't speak English. All he hears is "LOUD NOISES!" (anyone? eh?) Because of my BIG reaction, Gavin's going to continue his BIG behavior! What I should do instead is redirect him. When he starts barking at his shadow friend I use a happy tone, jog in the other direction, call him to me, make him sit, then praise!
One of my favorite moments in a dog training class is the "Ah-a! breakthrough" when a pet parent realizes her own actions to correct a negative behavior are actually encouraging it! We laugh at ourselves and our dog wags his tail, we learn from our mistake and try to curb our action. Our problem is this: we are human. We are going to continue to be very verbal with our dog as well as use lots of hand gestures in conversation that without our knowing, our dog is trying to translate into his language. Just like learning a new language, learning to speak dog is going to take lots of practice because it just isn't natural to us.
To help you get started keep this in mind: Dogs learn by,
First: Body language
Second: Tone of voice
Third: Verbal cues (words)
Be patient with yourself and your dog, if your dog is being disobedient stop and ask yourself if your message is clear to him. One of the most important aspects of training is consistency so for your dog's sake, make sure your entire family is on the same page and, better yet, make a family outing of it and enroll your dog into an obedience class!
