My dog is misbehaving. He jumps on visitors when they enter the house, nips and barks at everything, and snatches food from the counter.
Which training tip do you think is the best for dogs?
Since dogs struggle with generalization, it’s important to vary the training schedule and environment to help them truly learn the behavior you want them to exhibit. It is a regular occurrence to train some behaviors but not be able to generalize them to new situations.
Indeed! Please raise your voice for those in the rear. For instance, I mistakenly believed that I had trained my dogs to sit for a variety of purposes (learning to wait, putting on and taking off a leash, etc.). But after that, we visited my sisters on a field trip. They paid no attention at all. They were not paying attention because of the unfamiliar surroundings, people, sounds, and scents. They now respond to their training so much better when I reaffirmed it, even if it took a minute. Every new location is like resuming the training. It takes less time, but you still have to start over.
Give praise for well-done work. Reward your dog with praise and food when they do a behavior you enjoy, such as sitting, quietly chewing on a bone, or using their crate. People frequently penalize poor behavior but neglect to commend positive behavior. They won’t understand what you want of them and would believe that everything they do is wrong if all you do is punish. When we model the behaviors we appreciate in them, they will become more habitual.
To this, I would add that you should even go so far as to ignore negative actions or express only one item in a particular tone.
If a neighbor repeatedly tells their dog to “leave it,” it’s likely encouraging the dog’s reactive behavior.