How to train a Dog Lesson 8

Digging is an activity that the majority of dogs do at some point during their lives. As with chewing, this may be for a number of reasons. One of the most obvious reasons is that digging is part of their natural instinct. In the summer, wolves will kill and eat the majority of their food, unsure of when they will be eating again. The wolves then bury the food that they do not eat, ready for winter when food becomes less available. Coming from the same family, dogs and wolves act in similar ways. Just as wolves bury their food, dogs also like to bury their bone ready to have at a later time.

Digging is a good form of exercise for your dog and the amount of digging your dog is doing could be linked to a lack of other exercise. Digging helps your dog release the extra energy he may have (next time your dog digs a hole, watch how much energy he uses and how tired he is afterwards!) This extra energy could be because your dog is not being taken on enough walks or being played with.

An important point to remember is no matter how annoyed you get at your dog for digging holes, DO NOT shout or yell. By giving your dog attention, albeit negative, this may encourage your dog to continue digging in order to receive more attention from you and then the problem may become even worse!

One suggestion that could work for some of you lucky owners is to tell you dog ‘no’ in a calm, but stern voice, if you see your dog digging. Although this may work for some, dogs dig the majority of their holes while their owners are not there. This is especially true if your dog has a short attention span and digs out of boredom.

A way of stopping this behavior is to put a wooden stick in the middle of one of the holes that he has dug and using a lead or piece of string tie him to the stake and leave him for around 20 minutes. Although your dog may dig a couple more holes, your dog will soon learn that if he digs a hole, then he will be tied up and this discourages him from digging in the long run. By realizing the reason why your dog is digging, this enables you to help overcome the problem easily and in a fairly short amount of time.

How to train a dog Lesson 6

In general, dogs are not naturally aggressive animals. Some dogs end up being aggressive due to the way they have been brought up by their owners. This could be because an owner doesn’t understand how to train their dog properly or because they mistreat and abuse them.

Dogs show their aggression in a variety of ways from staring, growling, barking or mounting or a combination of these things. In some cases may a dog demonstrate its aggression through biting, although this is only in extreme cases. There is always a reason behind a dog’s aggression. Once the reason for the aggression has been pinpointed, this will help find a cure for it and hopefully stop this aggressive behavior for good. There are many reasons why a dog may be aggressive. One reason is that a dog’s instinct is to dominate and by being aggressive they believe that this will happen.

Another reason for aggression is that it is a dog’s instinct to be the leader of the group and so to become this, your dog believes that barking, growling or some other aggressive behavior will make him the ‘leader’. As soon as your dog starts to become aggressive, this must be dealt with straight away. A dog may sometimes play up his aggressive behavior to challenge you and see if you will give in to him. Therefore, this needs to be dealt with immediately otherwise your dog thinks that his behavior is acceptable and the problem will become even worse.

The problem may have been started if you let your dog growl as a puppy to get his way. As your dog wasn’t told off for doing it, he still thinks that he is allowed to do it and as your dog gets older and bigger, the behavior will get even worse. In order to control your dog’s aggression, start training your dog as a puppy. You need to let your dog know that his behavior is unacceptable. To reduce your dog’s aggression it is also a good idea to make him socialize around other dogs and people. Getting your dog used to being around other dogs will help him to learn that it is wrong to bark, growl and jump at them.

If your dog was ever attacked or abused at some point in his life, this will have taught him to be aggressive back in order to protect himself. Anything that is used to physically hurt a dog will increase their aggressive behavior. Therefore physical punishment should never be used during training.

All aggressive dogs show some signs of aggression whether it be standing tall and stiff, pinning his ears down with his tail tucked between his legs, staring aggressively or crouching whilst avoiding eye contact. Gradual training is the key to helping an aggressive dog. Make sure you don’t force your dog into socializing with other dogs and people and this may make him feel threatened and trigger his aggressiveness. With a dominantly aggressive or territorial dog, the best training is obedience training. Never lose your temper as an aggressive dog will take advantage of you.