Training Puppies
The first rule on owning a new puppy is simple ABCs: Always Be Carrying treats. Have a small bag of dried meat on your person at all times (except when sleeping, but then still close by).Next important rule is never let a puppy sleep in your bed, no matter how cute. Mattresses resemble weewee pads to puppies and the list of reasons to follow this rule is endless. If you feel bad, just remember in a few years, the bed will belong to your dog eventually.
With those two major points established, we can begin learning how to communicate with our new friend.
Yes and No
A top priority should be to quickly teach our pet the words yes and no. Unfortunately, dogs don't speak English and can bear a great deal of pain with a grin and little else. This means our two primary methods of teaching are ineffective.Hitting or beating a dog while saying No will not be interpreted the same way a human child would. Dogs see this behavior as a playful contest and the goal of teaching the dog a new trick is lost.
We say trick because the command is perceived to be understood since the dog obeys, but really the training is performed to appear as if the dog can discerne words when really they are just tricked into anticipating food when they hear certain sounds.
Let me explain. To teach the dog No you have to punish the dog while saying the word repeatedly in a stern voice. This response does not include any reward and does include some form of pain or discomfort. Well, we just established that dogs bear and grin even extreme physical abuse, so how do we administer a lesson to associate pain with our keyword or phrase? The answer is found in rhe dog's biologically superior traits, namely smell and sound. Since smell seems to offend far fewer dogs than logically sensible, we can introduce sharp crackling sounds that are so loud to a canine's sensitive hearing, that it would far exceed the effect of physical responses. Hitting a dog is like admitting your too frustrated to properly train a pet. It confuses the animal with mixed messages of their rank within the pack. A folded newspaper slapped against your own leg will easily associate the word No with a negative event.
On the reverse end, teaching Yes can be incredibly fun. When rewarding your dog, first say Yes in a clear but gentle tone, followed by a tiny taste of a crumb of the dried meat you keep on hand. As scavengers and carnivores, dried meat most closely resembles a dog's natural prize after a successful hunt.
Food Rewarding
Remember to clearly say Yes after establishing eye contact before offering a treat. Bigger sized treats have little effect on the effectiveness of the training. The point is to give the puppy a taste so soon it will start to salivate whenever it hears the word Yes.Other Keywords
Essentially, all words in a dog's vocabulary can be assigned a negative or positive salivation response. Consistency is key, so try not to confuse which keywords result in rewards. For example, saying Bad dog! followed by a pat on the head and a small treat will teach the dog to perform the activity that led to you saying that keyword. Which means the bad behavior is repeated because last time it led to food.Why it Works
It makes perfect sense to dogs, just not us. The dog hears a keyword (for example, Good), then receives a reward of food directly after. Soon the dog begins anticipating food when it hears that word. Now place the dog in the final position of a trick and repeat the Yes keyword many times. It's important to ensure the dog is fixed into the position expected at the end of the trick. Now the dog sees that when you raise his paw, for example, that position is also a Yes association, so salivation occurs because Yes equals treats.When you repeated enough times, release the dog from your hold (for example, let go of his paw), and then confirm his suspicions of a reward with a morsel from the meat bag. The dog will then deduce that being in that position before was worthless, but now when you ask for Paw--the repeated keyword--it means your going to lift his paw for a little while, which is weird sure, but there's a treat on its way. With puppies being impatient, they speed up the process by lifting their paw for you, so you can save time and skip to giving the food. Now, when someone hears you say Paw and your puppy lifts her paw, you've tricked your audience (not your puppy) into convincing them your dog knows what a paw is.
Because the keyword associated with food was repeated when you apparemtly wanted to hold the paw up for a while. "Let's speed up delivery of that treat result when those sounds are heard and the dog changes position.
Whether it's to sit, stay, lay down, roll over, beg, turn left, jump, or countless others, they all follow the simple rule of doggie ABCs: Always Be Consistent, Always Be Carrying treats, and now add: A Bad Canine doesn't eat.
No food?
It's really that simple, but that's no license for starving your friend. While their young, you should spend at least 3 hours a day teaching and training, and a minimum of one hour a day fast-paced running.Dogs might not be majestically-sized horses or lions, but they have four legs, two sets of matching limbs, all built to propel the animal at speeds we could never match and for distances that our bodies would never survive. They naturally hunt by exhausting their prey from a marathon-long chase that can last days before the target drops dead of a heart attack. And those are wild animals that evolved to survive predator attacks, we didn't really nurture our physical dominance against wild animals, just outsmarted their instincts. But that translates to an animal not actively and regularly running full speed for most of each day, and so that naturally occuring need to burn enormous amounts of energy won't be exhausted going jogging-speed with a human for however long we can manage on the daily.
Must Run
Dogs must run a lot. They are the pinnacle predator of the planet, capable of challenging and overpowering any other species on the planet, especially given their nature to be pack animals.Lots of Bones
We don't have any canine teeth, not like dogs. They eat everything on a carcass of food, including the bones. Their super-dense teeth crumble hard bones into a healthy dessert after a fresh meal. Dogs must eat bones to stay healthy.
Teach your dog to trick humans with some newspaper and a bag of bacon bits, and you'll soon find you've run out of commands before your dog gets too old to learn new tricks.