HoundsGood

There has been a lot of controversy about various dog training methods lately. Some people scoff at some of the shows on TV, hosted by various experts because they feel it encourages people with no experience to take matters into their own hands. If one “doesn’t know what they are doing,” they can get hurt or confuse the dog. It is fact that dogs cannot be taught as people teach human children. While the dog is intelligent, you cannot give him or her a “talking to” about something they did six days ago. You actually can. It won’t hurt the dog, but it won’t improve things either and just make you more frustrated, which in turn “travels down the leash” and agitates the dog. The worst case of the delayed reaction concept being carried out is when someone rubs a dog’s nose where they had an accident, as it does not catch the dog in the act and only confuses and scares them, especially when young.

Recently, many of my friends have become strong advocates for Positive Reinforcement Training. It makes absolute sense, as a dog is a social creature that is so willing and wanting to please, and it is a method that the average dog owner or even someone who is new to dogs can understand. Among all the dog trainers at the moment that I have received info on, there are just a couple that stress this as a method. If you are looking for a dog trainer in San Diego a dog walking San Diego company, you can go to Expertdogtrainingsd.com to start the process of the hunt. Of course, never hire a trainer based on a website, and don’t be fooled by the allure of a glossy website alone, but a website can be valuable at weeding out candidates based on geographic location and philosophy. Once you have that narrowed down, you can start emailing and calling to find the right fit. Keep an open mind to the idea that while the dog may have come into your life with certain conditioning that has nothing to do with you, you may also share some of the root causes for the behavior issues. You and your dog may be communicating with eachother on a proverbial scratchy phone.

If anyone can understand positive reinforcement, than why do you need a trainer? Training dogs is not just training the dog to understand what is expected of them, but to also teach the owner how to communicate clearly, and even more so, to be consistent. I have seen more than several dogs that people have given up on with housebreaking or other training and the actuality is that they just didn’t give the dog a chance. If they change their expectations every single day, there is no possible way a dog will understand what is expected of him or her.

Do yourself and your dog a favor: when trouble is brewing, don’t be afraid to ask for help. That little issue may be something the two of you can overcome to enjoy many, many happy years together. Remember, only 1 in 12 dogs ever gets a permanent home. The other 11 are bounced around from place to place or are euthanized before they can know the love of a special person forever. Make sure the dogs that are in your care are the #1′s.

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