Discipline Your Dog the Positive Way

Many fortunate dog owners can live their lives without ever having to discipline, punish or reprimand their beloved, well-behaved bowwow. Sadly, the majority of puppy parents aren't so lucky, and spend the majority of their dog's infancy trying to figure out the quickest and most efficient techniques that successfully teach Man's Best Friend how to improve their behavior. Discipline should never relate to the concept of over-correcting or physically abusing the dog in the quest for a well-behaved mutt.

Training dogs is an immeasurable task and numerous debates amongst the hound-loving community continue over the most effective ways to educate their barking canines how to act more appropriately. Specifically, the contention centers around corrective teaching and punishment. A pup should never be chastised or penalized for doing things that you do not like, and instead should be corrected so that they do not repeated the offending actions again.

Correcting is when you immediately give your pooch a verbal command of authority that displays dissatisfaction or disapproval when the deed is done (or about to be done). A punishment, on the other hand, is anything after that. Excessively punishing a dog is not fair, because they do not possess the same reasoning faculties as us, and therefore do not set out to logically plan what to do like humans do. Additionally, while a dog may sense that you are angry with its behavior if, for example, it jumps up onto your bed or chews a pillow from your couch, it will still fail to understand the underlying reason behind why you were initially mad.

The most valuable way to dissuade your dog from doing something wrong is to catch them in the act. After all, punishing them afterwards can lead to both uncertainty and confusion that simply exacerbates the problem. Dogs will forever live in the moment, and your trusty tail-wagger will require a concise rectification instead of a quick, cruel chastisement that does nothing to help the situation.

"Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust." - Roger A. Caras

Dogs right each other through the use of body language, barking, biting and body blocks, but take physical strikes from humans as episodes of unwarranted violence. Therefore, you should never hit a dog as a form of punishment. Hitting a dog is an unnatural way of communicating that it will never understand. Because dogs are very social creatures who dislike being ignored, many dog owners think that isolating them with a time-out works. However, many professional dog trainers argue that this punishment method is inadequate because it applies fundamentally human psychology to an animal.

Positive reinforcement training techniques are essential for encouraging positive conduct. Dogs need to be told "yes" with something rewarding, but they also sometimes need to hear "no". One handy tip is to say "sit" directly after saying "no", because this gives your dog something else to do other than dwelling on the bad act they've just committed. Typically, when asked to sit, they cannot continue to do the naughty thing that you didn't want them to do.

Furthermore, the act of taking something that the dog enjoys away can eventually reduce their bad behavior. It is a teaching method that must be applied when the dog is in "bad mode", and must be conveyed unerringly. For example, your dog nips you when you're stroking them: As your dog enjoys being petted, stop it at once. This teaches them that doing something you deem objectionable will result in something they take pleasure in being taken away for the foreseeable future.