Taming a Dominant Dog
I may not know a thing about you but I’ll bet that you are very excited when there is a new addition to the household.
However, after picking up your dog and bringing your pet into your home, you realize that your dog is quite dominant and hard to control. What do you do? Some of you may say you will start to train your dog. Wait! Do you know what you are talking about? How do you train a dog? Do you know what you are going to do when the dog keeps barking? Yes, it is not that simple. Just like with any tasks, don’t come unprepared. Understanding and knowledge are both essential so take the time to know why dogs behave that way.
The first thing you should do is see where the origin of your dog is. A dog is a descendant of wolves. Although dogs have been domesticated thousands of years before, there is no doubt that there will be some characteristics similar to a wolf that is by instinct ingrained within your pet. An example would be its sense of smell. It uses its sense of smell to do basically do everything. Unlike us, we use our five senses to understand our surrounding. Therefore, we learn that even though dogs are domesticated they still retain some of their most basic instincts. That is the most important thing that you need to keep in mind before taming a dog.
If you feel that the time has come to start training your dog and show who’s boss then by all means start teaching your pet but remember three things for pet training: Focus, Take Control and claim all thing as your possession that is inside the house, of course.
Let’s begin with focus. Why do you need focus? Well, if you start training a dog, you may lose your cool as dogs do not understand simple English like sit down or stay. I bet you will find it very annoying. Some people think that the best way to deal with this is to beat the pet or even yell at them, Stop! You should not do that as it won’t do you any good. All you need to do is to be calm, steady and always remain firm. The most important thing that you should remember is that you should always remain calm when training your dog.
Next, take control of the situation. If you are teaching something new to your pet, maintain eye contact. By doing so, the dog will understand that you are in charge and the one in authority. Actually the submissive pet will look away. So if you often gaze away from your dog while speaking, it might come to an understanding that you cannot control your pet hence, remember to keep an eye contact with your pet.
The last part of training is to claim all things as yours whether this is about toys, food; rugs and so on stand your ground. You should only share your things with your dog when he understands that you are the one in charge.
Now that you are armed with this knowledge, you can continue teaching your pet. Sometimes, it requires some time until the desired results are achieved. Not only you should keep this in mind, you should always remember to give tender loving care to your pet.
