Dog obedience training – Introduction Dogs Cats & Vice Versa

There is a misconception that dogs hate cats – this is simply not the case. I'm sensitive and monitor the first contact that your dog or cat with you dog or cat you can train your dog very comfortable around your cat. A cat, the dog was not adopted until the age of seven years (and the dogs were from six months to fourYears) was initially anxious and not in the four biggest races – but with a program of gentle introduction and constant vigilance for a long time before they were very happy to be around each other. Here are some tips and advice on when to introduce your dog or your dog, your cat or kitten first.

Start bringing your kitten (or cat) at home in a wire crate so your dog or the dog can see and smell the new kittenAround the house – do not forget that the smell is very important with regard to detection dogs and puppies new additions to their environment.
If you decide the time is ripe for the cat or let the cat out of the box (wait until things calm) and be close at all times), open the door crate near an area where the cat or kitten can jump or run, he or she should be a bit 'worried.
If you like the liter tray on the floor to make sure that is away from youYour dog or dogs like the smell of feces and cat urine is very attractive to a dog or puppy.
Let the kitten or cat or dog alone with your dog until you are absolutely certain problems that are sure together, and each habit.
Not a dog at a time – imagine not all dogs, the dog or cat kitten around the same time as you can start winding the other side. A cat and even a cat is actually veryPosition, looking at himself in front of a small dog – a dog that is closer to the Quick Swipe.
Use positive reinforcement and reward based puppy training techniques to reinforce the positive behavior from your dog or cat if it behaves around your cat o.
If you already have a cat at home and you are introducing a dog or puppy for the first time – Start by removing the litter and let your catso access to a higher area of the house or the room that the cat or kitten puppy feels safe and away from the top dog o. It was not long regular socialization and for a longer period of time your new dog starts to get used vice versa, and the cat.

If you are lucky enough to get a 7-week-old puppy, there is no excuse for any bad habits to develop over his lifetime. Puppies learn INSTANTLY when they are that young, and if you use the proper training methods, gentle but consistent, he will behave like an angel his whole life through.

The most important training, of course, is housebreaking. Boys are easier than girls because exploring outside is their favorite thing. They just cannot get enough of all the new smells out there!

The main key to housebreaking is watching. Watch your puppy AND the clock. Once every hour is not too often on a day he is active and the weather is good. The younger the pup, the more often he needs to go out, mostly because he is growing so fast. He must drink more water to fuel his metabolism than he does as an adult. Also, since he eats three or four times a day, you know what that means.

Watch him for subtle changes. If he is happily chewing his toy, and gets up suddenly with his nose to the floor, move quickly! He is ready to squat! If he has had a nice nap, get him out of his crate and outside right away. If he has just had a good grooming, it stimulates his circulation and guess what? Time to go out again. And of course after a meal, watch him extra close.

Things to remember:

—Do not punish him for mistakes. They are YOUR fault. Every time you take him out he will go, and praise praise and praise! Happy face, laughter, happy noises! He loves your happy face. When he makes a mistake, your frown and your face turned away from him is all the punishment he needs. He will get the point.

—He is learning English, you must use the same phrases over and over. Good go potty! Hafta go potty? Wanna go potty? He can learn in one afternoon that go potty means a jaunt outside and your happy face. Whatever phrase you choose, stick with it.

—I cannot recommend strongly enough getting a crate. They truly help with all phases of his training. They make him more secure, provide him with his very own private space and a place for him to hide his favorite toys and chewies. This is even more important if you have other adult dogs in the house.

—Be consistent, always be kind and gentle, and be patient as he learns your language, and your puppy will always look forward to his training sessions. Dogs love to work!

D. Witt has shown, bred and trained standard poodles for 25 years. Vets and groomers of her pups send word back of how wonderfully happy and easy to handle they are. Gentle and consistent techniques produce a dog that is well-adjusted, happy and obedient his whole life through. For more on her training techniques, visit http://www.DogTraining15MinsADay.com

Do you ever find yourself repeating yourself to your dog or puppy? This article explains how to train a puppy or dog to listen to you first time, every time.

Many dog or puppy owners find themselves blaming their dog for not listening. When you have invested time and effort into training, it can seem like a bit of a disappointment when your dog suddenly decides to stop listening to you, or that something else in his world is more exciting or interesting than you are.

The truth is, dogs just do what works for them. It is up to you, as a puppy or dog owner to teach your pet to listen to you by making ‘listening to you’ work for them. Many dog owners inadvertantly teach their dog to ignore them!

So how do we teach a dog to listen to us?

Dog owners frequently repeat commands over and over. If your dog didn’t respond the first time, repetition isn’t going to help. Repeating commands teaches a dog that either the command is meaningless or that it’s ok to respond in their own sweet time!

We should never ask for a behavior that we aren’t at least 80% sure we will get after asking the first time. If there are too many distractions, we’re in a new situation, or the behavior just isn’t very well learned; then we probably won’t get the behavior we want.

Train quietly. It’s a hang-over from the old military-style dog training that we bellow commands at our dogs. Dogs actually have a powerful sense of hearing, and can hear our tiniest whispers. That’s not to say that a command shouldn’t be clear and audible, but if you only ever bellow commands during training, don’t expect your dog to learn to pay attention to you unless you are bellowing. A dog who has learned to listen carefully will tend to pay more attention.

A bit of meaningless chitter-chatter is ok every so often, but dogs don’t speak our language and we don’t want our cues to become lost amongst the noise. When training, try not to talk too much. Effective communication comes through quality and clarity, not quantity.

If you find yourself in a situation where your dog won’t respond to a cue, and you’re sure he knows it in other situations then ask yourself what is different about this situation? It could be that there are too many distractions for your dog to focus. It could be that the situation is vastly different from any that you have trained in.

Go back to basics when this happens. Remove distractions if you can, and re-introduce them slowly. Start at the beginning in a new situation, even if it means using a food lure briefly to ‘get the behavior’. If there’s too much going on, move away from the action a bit.

Remember to always set your dog up for success. If your dog can’t succeed, you can’t reinforce. If you can’t reinforce, nothing useful has been learned.

While we’re on the topic of reinforcement – make sure your rewards are meaningful. By definition, reinforcement is only reinforcement if it increases or maintains behavior. A full-up dog being offered lousy treats, or a dog-tired dog being offered a chance to chase a ball is probably not going to be too interested in training.

Quit while you are ahead. Don’t try to train for too long. If you train too long you start getting sub-standard behavior. Reinforcing sub-standard behavior will only give you more sub-standard behavior in the future.

Don’t feel like you have to reinforce every behavior you ask for and get. Once the behavior is well learned, stop reinforcing the worst offerings. e.g If your dog is trained to come when called, don’t reinforce if he takes too long to respond. Set him up for success, and reinforce the faster responses only.

Train often. Dogs need to learn to learn, and by training often and training consistently, your dog will learn how to play the training game with you. It should be a game, too. If training isn’t like playing a game with your dog, it stops being fun for both of you.

Be worth listening to. Be someone your dog trusts and respects. Be predictable, confident, calm, and decisive. When you make a decision, stick with it. If you decide that your dog can’t sit on the couch, lead him onto his mat every time he sits on the couch. Don’t give in just because he’s giving you those eyes. It’s another matter altogether if you decide to invite your dog onto the couch as a reward for giving you some other behaviour you asked for, though.

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine, a free resource for people training their own dogs. Join now, and for a limited time you can download all available back issues (a $29.95 value) for free!

Dog training is easy when you discover the secrets of dog training professionals explained in this brief article. Once you leave your house, all your training will appear to go down the drain. How do you overcome these distractions? Find out right now!

What is reinforcement? Reinforcement is what happens when a behaviour is maintained or increased. Dog training is essentially a progression of reinforcements. Food, toys, play, attention and ‘life rewards’ such as being let inside or taken for a walk are all potential reinforcers.

Without reinforcement, behavior will never be maintained or increased. This is fine if you want a behavior to disappear – simply stop reinforcing it. But if you want a particular behavior, you need to reinforce it.

Most dog trainers these days use food as a reinforcer. It is by no means the only reinforcer, but food is convenient and, let’s face it, all dogs need to eat!

So we start off training with food in a quiet, distraction-free area inside the house. We put any other pets out of the room. We turn off the TV. We wait until the kids are in bed. Then we shut the door and train. There are numerous books and articles explaining how to do this, so I won’t re-hash the basics.

The problems begin when we get out of that distraction-free environment and into the real world. Here there are other dogs, birds, squirrels, cats, new smells, sights, sounds, people, cars, bikes, postmen – it’s all out there! Our training usually starts falling apart once we leave the house.

But it doesn’t need to.

The big secret to dog training is to always set the dog up for success. If the dog fails, we can’t reinforce. If we can’t reinforce, behavior can not be maintained or increased. If behavior hasn’t been maintained or increased, training has failed.

So we need to set the dog up to succeed. Going too far, too fast will only lead to failure. Allowing too many distractions or too big a distraction too soon is setting our dog up to fail. Without success, we’ve got nothing to reinforce.

The best way to set our dogs up for success is to control the environment as best we possibly can until they are well and truly proofed and ready for the big wide world.

Let’s say we normally train in our kitchen with the door shut. Here’s a list of things we can do to set up some low-level distractions:

1. place a tennis ball in the middle of the floor
2. turn the radio on softly, then turn it up gradually throughout our training session
3. have a friend come into the room with us
4. put a piece of stale dog food on the floor
5. wave our arms around
6. turn the taps on halfway through an exercise
7. whistle a tune
8. roll a tennis ball slowly in front of our dog
9. turn away from our dog

… or any combination of the above.

Remember, the secret is to always set our dogs up for success, so that we may reinforce (maintain or increase) their good behavior.

If any of the distractions on that list are too much, then our dog fails. Just because I wrote it on my list of low-level distractions doesn’t mean that your individual dog won’t find any one of those things too distracting.

Be creative. Think of new things to add to the list. When your dog can cope with them all, start making up combinations. Invite two or more friends around to help. Have them toss a ball back and forth while you practise stays or recalls. Have one of them whistle a tune while the other waves her arms around. The sky is the limit so long as we always set our dogs up for success.

When we have trained with distractions inside the house, we’re ready to find a quiet spot outside. No other dogs around, no kids playing, no cars screaming past, and hopefully no cats or squirrels. We train the behavior, then start adding the distractions from our list, always setting our dog up to succeed.

That is all there is to it – manufacture some controlled distractions, build them up, and always make them just easy enough that our dog continually succeeds so that we can reinforce the behavior.

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine, a free resource for people training their own dog. Join now, and for a limited time you can download all available back issues (a $29.95 value) for free!

One of the first dog obedience commands you will teach is training your dog to sit and stay.

This is an important command for you and your dog to master. It will clearly define you as the dominant one in the owner-dog relationship, and will provide a solid foundation for more advanced training later on.

You can start training your dog to sit and stay at around three months of age. Some general things to keep in mind when you first start out:

• Keep the training sessions short, ten minutes is fine initially.

• Make the training fun, don’t make it feel like a chore, to you and your dog.

• Sessions should be full of praise and positive reinforcement (more about this later).

• Be repetitive, practice over and over until it clicks with your dog.

Training Your Dog To Sit

The first step in the process is getting your dog to sit on command. There are three training techniques I use with my dogs, depending on their age and temperament.

1. For young puppies I like this method. When you see your puppy about to sit, or in the act of sitting, just say Sit in a firm tone. When your puppy sits praise him. In your dogs eyes this technique builds an association with your verbal command sit, and the act of sitting. Most puppies make this connection very quickly.

2. For older puppies or dogs this method works every time. With your dog standing in front of you, grab a tasty treat and guide it over his nose, then continue up over his head. Hold the treat a couple of centimeters above your dog while performing this motion. It will cause your puppy to follow the treat up with his nose, and at the same time plant his behind on the ground. You should say the command Sit as your dog is getting into the sit position. Praise and reward your dog as soon as he sits. After a while you will only need the verbal command, not the treat.

3. You need a collar and leash for this next technique, which is best suited to bigger dog breeds. Stand next to your dog, both of you facing the same way. Hold the leash straight up tight, directly above your dogs collar. At the same time push down on your dogs back and say sit. As soon as your dog sits, reward and praise him. Within no time you can stop pushing him down, then stop holding the leash up tight. All your dog will require is your verbal sit command.

The Stay part of the Sit and Stay is our next step. Since we have already trained our dog to sit on command, I prefer to use a release or away command, instead of stay. This is because when I tell my dog to sit, I really mean sit and stay, until I tell you to do something else. The release command I use is off you go.

The process goes like this. Tell your dog to sit, he’ll stay in the sit position, then break or release this sit command by saying off you go. You should use your dog’s name then your release command to start with, which will cause your dog to come to you. When he gets to you praise and reward him. After a while you will only need to use your release command, your dog will understand that he is free to go. If your dog breaks the sit command before you issue the release command, say no! and put him back in the sit position and start again.

Over time you can increase the time and distance between getting your dog to sit and then releasing him from it. You may even want to add some distractions, or do your training in different locations. When your dog holds his sit position even when a cat cruises by, you know he is ready to move on to more advanced obedience training commands.

If you understand and apply these methods you should achieve the desired result. It may take a bit of patience and plenty of repetition, but you will get there.

Chris Smith is a dedicated dog owner and creator of http://www.dog-obedience-training-review.com

Find out the best way to obedience train your dog at home. The latest cutting edge and proven techniques.

This article explains in plain english the fastest way to stop your puppy dog biting at your clothing, hands or other body parts. If you have tried everything or simply have no idea what to do, the answers are all here and made easy. Methods are humane and pet-friendly, utilising positive reinforcement and ‘time-outs’ instead of spanking or scolding.

All puppies will bite and chew your body parts or clothing. It is just what puppies do. Their sharp, needle-like teeth can cause quite a lot of pain, and clothing can easily be damaged. It makes sense that we want to teach puppy that this is unacceptable as quickly as possible. What’s more, if puppies are allowed to continue this behavior, by the time they are adolescents or adults they could cause some serious damage!

That’s not to say that having a puppy’s mouth on you is necessarily a ‘bad’ thing. Puppies need to learn what we call ‘bite inhibition’, which is a soft, inhibited bite. Why? All dogs will bite under certain circumstances, particularly if taken by surprise. The dog that learns bite inhibition can bite without causing any real damage.

First, some theory. Don’t worry, it’s not long and boring!

If you have read my earlier article Secrets of Dog Training Professionals – Operant Conditioning then you will be familiar with the term ‘Negative Punishment’. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But don’t worry, Negative Punishment simply means that behavior is decreased because we took something away as a consequence of that behavior.

A ‘time out’ is a Negative Punisher when the target behavior is decreased. Time outs are one of the most humane and pet-friendly punishments we can use, when used with thought and care.

Puppies bite at our hands and clothing because that is the way that puppies like to play. It is fun, and they enjoy our attention. They particularly like it if we try to fight them off of us. Have you ever seen two or more puppies playing? They like to fight each other with their mouths and paws.

Normally, other puppies teach our puppy not to bite too hard by squealing in pain. When we take our puppy from the litter, these other puppies aren’t around to teach proper bite inhibition any more. Some people advise trying to emulate a ‘puppy squeal’ to discourage biting too hard.

I don’t know why, but people just don’t seem to be very convincing with their squeals, so I don’t recommend it as a training technique. What’s more, some puppies seem to enjoy it when their human squeals and will get more excited, resulting in more biting. This is obviously not what we want puppy to do! If you can squeal and your puppy immediately stops biting, then this is an acceptable technique. Monitor the behavior long-term, though, to make sure biting too hard is decreasing.

A different, yet highly effective aproach is to say ‘ouch’ in a neutral tone of voice (not loud, not high-pitched and not angry) then walk out of the room, shutting the door behind you for 30 seconds. This marks the exact behavior you are trying to punish, then gives a time-out as a consequence.

It may take puppy a little while to figure out the link between his biting and the time-out, but the marker will make it clearer. It is important to say ‘ouch’ in a neutral tone of voice, and say it exactly at the moment that puppy bites too hard.

Notice that I said exactly at the moment that puppy bites too hard? We don’t want to discourage young puppies from biting altogether, this would be bite prohibition. We want to teach puppies to inhibit their bite.

Time-outs should not be excessive. A long time-out can be stressful and lead to other unwanted behaviors. 30 seconds is more than enough and seems to be quite effective. Don’t look back at puppy or try to push puppy away when you say ‘ouch’. Simply get up and leave, closing the door behind you.

If you have family or friends in the room then it might be easier to lead puppy out of the room and shut him out for his time-out. However, this doesn’t seem to be as effective to me.

Remember, it is only punishment if the behavior decreases. Continuing with a punishment which is unclear or ineffective is a waste of time and borders on abuse (although, it would be hard to do damage with a 30 second time-out). Consider your timing, consistency and whether or not there is anyone else in puppy’s life who is not following through with this protocol consistently. It is important that you explain the rules to anyone who plays with puppy.

If all else fails, seek professional advice. Most vet clinics are now offering puppy kinder classes using humane and pet-friendly techniques.

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine, a free resource for people training their own dogs. Join now, and for a limited time you can download all available back issues (a $29.95 value) for free!

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Do you ever find yourself repeating yourself to your dog or puppy? This article explains how to train a puppy or dog to listen to you first time, every time.

Many dog or puppy owners find themselves blaming their dog for not listening. When you have invested time and effort into training, it can seem like a bit of a disappointment when your dog suddenly decides to stop listening to you, or that something else in his world is more exciting or interesting than you are.

The truth is, dogs just do what works for them. It is up to you, as a puppy or dog owner to teach your pet to listen to you by making ‘listening to you’ work for them. Many dog owners inadvertantly teach their dog to ignore them!

So how do we teach a dog to listen to us?

Dog owners frequently repeat commands over and over. If your dog didn’t respond the first time, repetition isn’t going to help. Repeating commands teaches a dog that either the command is meaningless or that it’s ok to respond in their own sweet time!

We should never ask for a behavior that we aren’t at least 80% sure we will get after asking the first time. If there are too many distractions, we’re in a new situation, or the behavior just isn’t very well learned; then we probably won’t get the behavior we want.

Train quietly. It’s a hang-over from the old military-style dog training that we bellow commands at our dogs. Dogs actually have a powerful sense of hearing, and can hear our tiniest whispers. That’s not to say that a command shouldn’t be clear and audible, but if you only ever bellow commands during training, don’t expect your dog to learn to pay attention to you unless you are bellowing. A dog who has learned to listen carefully will tend to pay more attention.

A bit of meaningless chitter-chatter is ok every so often, but dogs don’t speak our language and we don’t want our cues to become lost amongst the noise. When training, try not to talk too much. Effective communication comes through quality and clarity, not quantity.

If you find yourself in a situation where your dog won’t respond to a cue, and you’re sure he knows it in other situations then ask yourself what is different about this situation? It could be that there are too many distractions for your dog to focus. It could be that the situation is vastly different from any that you have trained in.

Go back to basics when this happens. Remove distractions if you can, and re-introduce them slowly. Start at the beginning in a new situation, even if it means using a food lure briefly to ‘get the behavior’. If there’s too much going on, move away from the action a bit.

Remember to always set your dog up for success. If your dog can’t succeed, you can’t reinforce. If you can’t reinforce, nothing useful has been learned.

While we’re on the topic of reinforcement – make sure your rewards are meaningful. By definition, reinforcement is only reinforcement if it increases or maintains behavior. A full-up dog being offered lousy treats, or a dog-tired dog being offered a chance to chase a ball is probably not going to be too interested in training.

Quit while you are ahead. Don’t try to train for too long. If you train too long you start getting sub-standard behavior. Reinforcing sub-standard behavior will only give you more sub-standard behavior in the future.

Don’t feel like you have to reinforce every behavior you ask for and get. Once the behavior is well learned, stop reinforcing the worst offerings. e.g If your dog is trained to come when called, don’t reinforce if he takes too long to respond. Set him up for success, and reinforce the faster responses only.

Train often. Dogs need to learn to learn, and by training often and training consistently, your dog will learn how to play the training game with you. It should be a game, too. If training isn’t like playing a game with your dog, it stops being fun for both of you.

Be worth listening to. Be someone your dog trusts and respects. Be predictable, confident, calm, and decisive. When you make a decision, stick with it. If you decide that your dog can’t sit on the couch, lead him onto his mat every time he sits on the couch. Don’t give in just because he’s giving you those eyes. It’s another matter altogether if you decide to invite your dog onto the couch as a reward for giving you some other behaviour you asked for, though.

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine, a free resource for people training their own dogs. Join now, and for a limited time you can download all available back issues (a $29.95 value) for free!

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There is a puppy and dog lovers book that is destined for stardom. It is written in a very practical way. Its so easy to understand and to implement the instructions.

This book was written out of love for puppy and dog lovers. The practical tips and tricks explained will help anyone with puppy and dog challenges.

Puppy And Dog Training Secrets takes training to another level. In order to ensure the success of you and your pet, the author even throws in a set of videos to help the both of you achieve victory.

Obedience

This is the biggie with any animal youre going to train. Puppy And Dog Training Secrets certainly places obedience at the top of the agenda. But the breed and temperament is also taken into consideration.

For instance, bulldog or Rottweiler type breeds are generally guard dogs. However, Collies are used to herding. They love wide open spaces, enjoy running and have oodles of energy.

Your approach may have to be tweaked a bit when training the different breeds. Puppy And Dog Training Secrets take this into consideration.

Obedience is not shoved down the animals throat, but rather is incorporated into the things that are done daily. Puppy and dog lovers know that training must be consistent. It also involves diligent and sometimes hard work. But in the end, it is very rewarding.

House Training

Break that puppy early. House training can turn into a lengthy procedure. But it doesnt have to be. Puppy And Dog Training Secrets advocates seeking an early breakthrough in this area.

They give you proven methods and techniques to help you achieve that sought after early breakthrough. If your puppy or dog presents a challenge, they have prepared well for that also.

Commands

Puppy And Dog Training Secrets will give you strategies on getting your pet to obey you the first time, every time. Their method at getting your pet to obey the toilet command is a sure one. Have you ever seen your puppy so excited to see you that he wets himself? Or he wets even you? Puppy And Dog Training Secrets addresses that also.

Conclusion

Puppy And Dog Training Secrets assures you of a well trained puppy or dog. For me, their techniques took time. I did finally get the results I wanted. I was happy with that.

I like the way the author encourages the pet owner to be sensitive toward their pet. Trust building is encouraged throughout. Yes, Puppy And Dog Training Secrets is a wonderful book to have if you are a puppy and dog lover.

Here is my DOG tip for the day. You remember (Dog Owners Guide) DOG:

When friends or relatives come over for a visit, no matter how friendly your pet is, put him away. Something as simple as a hug from an adult relative can spark a pet to protect a child. Even if your pet is good with children, the best you can say is he is good with your children. Dont take the chance. Put him away.

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This brief article is an introduction to Clicker Training for Puppies and Dogs. Clicker Training is an effective and pet-friendly method of dog training that anyone can learn and use straight away to teach tricks and solve common behavior problems.

What is a Clicker?

A Clicker is a small noise-maker which makes a clicking sound. The click itself is brief, clearly audible and consistent.

What is the point of using a Clicker?

If we wish to reward a dog for behavior that we want more of, we need to be able to say to the dog Yes! That is exactly what I am rewarding! For many behaviors, we can simply say Yes! or Good! and follow up with the reward (usually food, see the article Secrets of Dog Training Professionals – Why Use Food? for reasons why).

The clicker, or verbal marker, is known as a Bridging Stimulus because it bridges the gap between behavior and reward.

If you are trying to teach your dog to push a button with his paw, for example, then you need to be able to reward that exact behavior. This is where the clicker comes in, you can click the clicker precisely as the paw hits the button – effectively saying That is exactly what I want you to do – then give the reward.

How Do Clicker Trainers Stop Unwanted Behavior?

Clicker Trainers have a bag of tricks based in the science of Operant Conditioning. However, they do not use force, fear, pain or scolding to train. That still leaves Negative Punishment, Extinction and training alternative behaviors.

When a clicker trainer comes across an unwanted behavior, they ask What is reinforcing this behavior? and What would I like my dog to instead? Then set about removing the reinforcers for the unwanted behaviour and training a preferred behavior.

Does it Really Work?

Clicker Training is nothing new, it’s just taken a while to catch on. It is proven to work and has been used to train dogs in every field of endeavour, from Guide Dogs, to Police Dogs, to Obedience Champions. It has also been used to train thousands of species of animal, including wild animals in their natural environment.

If you try to punish a wild animal it will either run away or kill you. This leaves Clicker Training as one of the few effective alternatives. Tigers and Bears have been trained to offer a tail or paw and have blood taken. Dolphins have been trained in military surveillance in the open ocean. Dogs have been trained to make their disabled owner’s beds – just a few examples of what clicker training can be used for.

Where Can I Learn More About Clicker Training?

Positive Petzine is a free resource for people training their own dogs. Join now, and for a limited time you can download all available back issues (a $29.95 value) for free!

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine.

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Does your puppy or dog Beg, Borrow or Steal from your dinner table? Turn the tables on him! You can turn begging, borrowing or stealing from the dinner table into an asset by following this simple plan.

So many times we see behavior we don’t like and think how can I stop that? We do ourselves a great disservice because then our focus is on ‘stopping’ the behavior we don’t want rather than training the behavior we DO want.

Why do dogs beg or steal from the dinner table? Quite simply, they want food.

Some dogs are particularly brazen (and agile) and will attempt to steal food directly from the table. This is usually met with some sort of reprimand, but if your dog has ever been successful in his raid then the pattern is set. If you leave your plate unattended (except by your vigilant dog), then don’t be too surprised to find half your dinner missing when you return.

It has nothing to do with dominance. It has just become reinforced behavior.

Other dogs aren’t quite so brazen, or would have physical difficulty in stealing directly from the table. These dogs tend to ‘beg’, by staring, drooling, pawing or whatever works to get them a little of the delicious meal you have prepared. Their behavior only needs to be reinforced once and it will take a very long time to go away without any further reinforcement (and that means from anyone, even by accident).

However, we can turn this begging or stealing into an asset by ‘turning the tables’ (so to speak) on our pet!

First up, we need to decide what we would prefer our dog to do instead of begging or stealing. I would almost always prefer a ‘down’ – as in ‘lying down quietly’. My dogs are big, and when they sit, long shoelaces of drool dangle disgustingly from their mouths. Laying down just looks better to me.

To begin with, during actual meals we will lock our dogs out of the room or put them in their crates. This is so we can enjoy a meal without having to train. In the early stages we need to concentrate during training.

If you have more than one dog, just work with one at a time at first. Lock the other dog/s out of the room.

Have your dog’s normal meal in a bowl on the dinner table. Obviously, a clean bowl is preferred for reasons of hygiene.

If your dog doesn’t already know how to lay down on command, then take a small piece of food and lure him into position. If you don’t know how to do this, find out. (You may need to cut some types of food into tiny pieces before you begin).

Silently, count to 1 in your head and give him some food if he is still laying down.

Now immediately count to 2 in your head, and give him some food if he is still laying down.

Now count to 3 in your head, and give him some food is he is still laying down.

If at any point your dog gets up, then ask him to lay down again and re-start your count at 1. If you get all the way to 10 and he gets up, ask him to lay down again and re-start the count at 1, feed, 2, feed etc

Keep your sessions short, 5 minutes at the most to begin with. You can do this 2 or 3 times each day if you have the time, but keep each session short.

When your dog can stay laying down for a count of 30, you can start using this exercise during normal meals unless you have another dog. If you have two or more dogs, start working with both of them when they can both stay down for a count of 30 individually. When they can both stay down for a count of 30 together, then you can start using this exercise during normal meal times.

By all means, if you want to feed them healthy tid-bits from your plate, then do so. I now only use food off my plate, and my dogs will stay in position for nearly a whole meal. I give only two or three tid-bits during a meal.

This exercise will teach your dogs some self-control, manners and over time, how to work for a long duration.

Aidan Bindoff is Editor of Positive Petzine, a free resource for people training their own dog.

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