The Principles In Training A Dog
I don’t know a thing about you but I’ll believe that you would agree with me on this. Every pet owner would want their dogs to be obedient. Some dog owners achieve this with the help of a dog handler or even by themselves. But, unforunately, not all training are successful. Why? This is because, some things may have been overlooked. So, let’s talk about dog training and issues that are linked with the training.
I am sure you have tried and tested a lot of methods and techniques to train you pet dog. However, you have to remember one thing. You cannot expect your pet dog to obey you the first time you command it. Why? well, you need to understand and know your dog. In other words, you need to have an understanding with your pet dog. That way, you can train it properly.
So what do you do to make your pet obey? First, you need to have an understanding of the principles of training your pet dog. What are these principles? Basically, there are three basic principles behind dog training and these are reinforcement, punishment and extinction.
What do I mean by reinforcement? It is the dog’s reaction to the trainer where behavior either becomes better or worst by means of specific actions. Let me explain further. There are two categories of reinforcement. They are: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.
What is positive reinforcement? Positive reinforcement is about giving rewards or praise. If your dog behaves or obeys you, then you reward or praise your pet. By doing this, your dog will understand that it will be rewarded as long as it listens to you or behaves.
Negative reinforcement happens when the trainer removes an unpleasant situation to make the dog obey. An example of this is when you want to teach your dog to sit. I am sure your dog will not budge if tell it to sit. What you can do is that you can pressure on the collar and release the pressure once the dog obeys you.
Another principle that is used in dog training is the punishment principle. This is can be about positive punishment or the negative punishment. Positive punishment is where the trainer does something unpleasant and the dog’s negative behavior decreases. While on the other hand, negative punishment is about taking away something that the dog really likes or enjoys and the behavior is diminished or eliminated.
The third principle is about total elimination of a behavior. This is when behavior is not reinforced resulting to its extinction or elimination. For example, your dog is a constant whiner so you allow it to go outside but this time you have changed, your technique so even if the dog continues to whine a lot it is not allowed to go out anymore. Eventually the dog will learn that whining will do him no good so it stops.
For most dog owners, they believe that positive reinforcement is the best way to train a dog. Yes, it may be for some but this might not work for the others. So before taking on any of the principles discussed, it is still better to have an assessment of your dog’s behavior prior to any training. In this way, you will know which of the principles would give you the best chance of success when it comes to training your dog.
Tags: Pets