Jan 23 2010

Dog Behavioral Problems – 4 EZ Solutions

Often, you may find your dog acting up, and if you’re contending with dog behavioral problems, it’s advisable to act as quickly if possible. If bad dog behavior is simply ignored, you may end up with a major issues on your hands. The good news is, there are a plethora of simple techniques to implement change in dog behavior issues in a humane and patient way.

Dog behavioral problems can vary from adorable, but annoying little problems, to full fledged threatening issues such as a dog attack. Though there are various causes of behavioral problems, the solutions are pretty consistent. The old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” isn’t an excuse and with consistent training, you can overcome dog behavior problems. Let’s look at four user-friendly dog training tips.

1. Keep it Up. This is the ultimate piece of advice when training any dog. Don’t fall into the trap of letting your dog off the hook from the discipline because this will only serve to undo your training. Be consistent with praise as well as with consequences and your pet will begin to understand that you are truly the pack leader.

2. Positive Reinforcement is Vital. While many traditional dog training techniques, e.g.: putting your dog’s nose in their mess, may be initially effective, they may actually produce more issues down the road. Building up and praising your dog helps your dog associate good behavior with good rewards, and is a very effective means of tackling even the toughest dog behavior problems.

In brief, reinforcing good behavior means that you reward your pet when he or she does the right thing, and withhold the reward when they misbehave. Even the most stubborn dog will begin to respond to these strategies, when they are applied every time.

3. Get a Crate. One of the simplest ways to put an end to destructive behavior is to provide your dog with clear cut boundaries. Crating them while you’re away, or when you need some space is an effective and humane method to control your pet. You may need to introduce them to the crate slowly, and give them time to get used to being confined. The key is to be consistent and reward them for controlling themselves in their crate. A crate should never be used as a punishment, insted as a quiet place for them to go and be at ease.

4. An additional cautionary note for you and especially your immediate family members. Once the dog behavioral problems are addressed, and the corrective training has started, it is imperative everyone addressing the dog use the very same training techniques. Everyone must be consistent in the training of the dog. If not, your poor pet will become very frustrated and may act out even worse than before the corrective training was initatied.

Once you have these methods in place, you can easily begin to solve dog behavioral issues without undue stress to you or your pet. A well behaved pet is a happy pet and you’ll appreciate the lack of destructive and potentially harmful dog behavioral problems.

James M. Hussey loves his dog, no matter the dog behavioral problems. He freelances on Elance as “JamestheJust,” writing killer web content and SEO articles for his clients. Dog Pet Stores is one of his recent blogs, and has answers to dog behavior questions and doggie goods.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment