Teddy’s Top Training Tip: Your dog is not being difficult if he wont do something, stop, listen and help your dog.
Listening to your dog is part of the relationship and training that we as owners have with out dogs. Learning about your dog’s body language, their habits, what interests them and what their fears/anxieties are can go a long way in helping your dog with his life skills.
Your dog can only tell you that something is wrong through communication and this can be body language, vocal communication and/or specific actions in situations or environments.
Remember having a well-trained dog does not mean that they will accept everything or cope with every situation they face. If they display behaviours or communication that indicate they are unable to do something, that is ok, you need to sit down and figure out why.
A dog may be in pain, fearful, anxious, not understand, etc.
Training your dog life skills is a long process of breaking down the training and working on small improvements in training and behaviour, this helps consolidate the training and allows your dog to understand what is required. So, do not do everything in one go or at one training session.
If your training is not going right, stop and look at your behaviour, have a think about what has been accomplished so far, are you still working on successes or looking at your dog’s failures? Remember do not set yourself or more importantly your dog up to fail.
Manage your training and manage your environment which is an important part of training your dog life skills.
Remember your dog is not a robot!