Dog Training Facts
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Dog exercise is an important part of training and caring for your dog. Most dogs need at least one daily walk and without it you can find yourself with a very mischievous mutt! Doggy behavioural problems tend to stem from dogs feeling bored and isolated, suffering a lack of stimulation or not receiving adequate socialization […]
Now that you are ready to start training your dog, you might find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of information available, and the differences of opinion on the subject of training techniques. But don’t worry — we’ve distilled it down to the basics for you, because that’s all you need to get started.
Your dog learns all his lessons from his environment. When you reward him for the right actions, you are modifying his environment to reinforce good behaviour. Training a dog positively and effectively requires changes in the setting too – otherwise your dog may not be able to carry his learned responses from one situation to the next.
Clicker training is a behaviour modification method that draws on the principles of operant conditioning to train animals. It was devised in the mid-1940s but did not become widely known until the 1990s. It is so called because it usually employs a clicker – a plastic box with a mechanical noisemaker which works by clicking – to train the animal.
Many dog owners experience behaviour problems with their dogs. A lot of the time these problems are quite minor but they can be frustrating and other times they can be downright embarrassing! Some problems such as barking at the postman and excavating your garden are quite natural behaviour for dogs but can still be considered unwelcome behaviour. There are also more serious problems such as aggression and biting, which can be a danger to your dog and others, and these problems absolutely have to be dealt with.
Dogs understand the world through environmental stimuli – sights, smells, sounds and taste. Basic dog training requires associating a specific sound (a command) with a specific behaviour through immediate and repeated rewards. Vary the situation as much as possible while keeping the command and expected behaviour constant, and the reward immediate. Once the association becomes […]