Help with Dog Obedience Problems
-Proven Dog Training Tips for Common Behavior Problems
By Angie T. Lee
Copyright 2012Angie T. Lee
Smashwords Edition
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Table of Contents
Introduction
If you own a dog, then you know how frustrating it can be to teach your pet how to conquer a specific behavioral problem, no matter how young or old your dog may be. Alas, it is sometimes entirely impossible to get past whatever mental blocks or issues of obedience that dogs may have.
This can be due to various reasons. Your dog might be lacking in sufficient exercise, resulting in an excess of energy. Maybe your dog is trying to challenge the alpha leader status of the owner in the house - a problem that must be dealt with immediately in order to avoid further complications. Or maybe household boundaries have simply never been assigned to your dog.
No matter the cause of your dog’s behavioral problems, keep in mind that about 99% of dogs are essentially good at heart and have the capability of learning acceptable behavior. All you have to do is teach your dog using the method that works for them, and continue to be consistent in your approach.
And don’t worry! This book will provide you with exactly what you need: to learn what your dog wants to see and hear from you, the owner, to avoid bad behaviors at home. Let’s go ahead and look into how problems such as leaky bladders to outright aggression can be checked!
Going to the Bathroom
Going to potty is a big problem with many canines. Sometimes the issue is not whether or not your dog wants to go to the bathroom outside, it is whether or not your dog can wait until it is outside to go or whether or not your dog recognizes the boundary between inside and outside.
Actually, dogs will usually try to avoid soiling their own home. Their instincts are to find a place other than their den in order to avoid parasites or diseases in the wild. This is why dogs will try to hold it in whenever you leave your house. They try their hardest not to dirty their own territory.
As mentioned above, the root of the problem is usually when one, your dog does not recognize your whole house as their home, and two, your dog is kept inside and not let outside frequently to relieve itself. Hence, the best way to solve your dog’s potty problem is to place it into one of these two categories, and then find out the most efficient way to assist your dog with its issue.
Frequency and Smaller Breeds
If your dog is already relatively potty trained, then the next step is to determine whether or not it is outside as often as it should be. This is a common problem among the smaller breeds, such as Yorkshire terriers, pugs, pinschers, and dachshunds (these dogs have smaller bladders and less insulation). Dog owners usually lessen the amount of time their dogs spend outside when the weather takes a turn for the worse. After all, letting a dog make a tiny mess indoors won’t change their normal behavior, and it’s not too hard to clean right?
Wrong. Even though a small mess won’t seem to be an issue at that particular time, this deviation will most likely cause more problems in the future. Remember, dogs will instinctually try to avoid going inside. They want to go outside because they don’t want to soil their home. Just think, would you want to relieve yourself say, in the kitchen sink instead of your bathroom?
Moreover, if making a mess indoors is tolerated, then your dog will never truly understand that going to the bathroom should be done strictly outdoors. Dogs cannot naturally differentiate between inside and outside areas. So, they need to be taught.
Dealing with Potty Issues
For a dog that isn’t really house trained and still makes a mess inside, the best way to help it is to start from the very beginning. A good way to train dogs is crate training because this method lets them have a personal space to claim as their territory, facilitating their instincts to avoid dirtying the place in which they sleep. If you prefer not to keep your dog in a crate, you can try giving it an individual room and paying close attention to it. To assist your dog, develop a routine in which the dog can go potty outside at a fixed daily time, and make sure to encourage your dog by praising it when it goes outside. Also, be careful not to become angry at your dog if it does end up making a mess indoors.
Simply try to catch your dog’s attention using a sharp sound (clap your hands, whistle, etc.), and immediately bring it outside so that it learns to associate the outdoors with going to the bathroom. Keep in mind that there will be no benefit to simply punishing the dog for soiling your floor. A dog cannot comprehend exactly why it is being punished before it can truly understand that it is expected to go potty outside.
In addition, you should consider having your floor or carpet cleansed thoroughly to get rid of any remaining pet odors that might be left behind. Most cleaners simply cover smells to please the human nose. However, dogs, with their excellent sense of smell, can identify odors and find their spots again. One problem is that owners of multiple dogs might see their pets trying to compete for spots with marks, creating a pattern that will become even harder to break.