Saucy Pet

Posts Tagged ‘train dog’

Training your dog to come as soon as it is called

Instructing a four-legged friend to come every time it’s called is a really imperative, and likely life saving, part of some successful k9 training system.  All properly trained dogs should learn to respond straight away to your owner’s voice, and also the quicker this lesson is learned your better.

The advantages of training your puppy to come anytime called are understandable.  Firstly, coming when called will assist you regain control of the dog in case of collar break, snapped leash or other similar equipment failure.  That is particularly important when you are out with your pet, especially in an area with lots of traffic.  It can be vital that the pet respond to your voice and return to your side, even in the absence of collar and leash, and even though there are lots of other activities competing for its attention.

Coming while called can also be a crucial skill for all working canine friend.  Whether your dog’s job is herding sheep, guarding livestock, or sniffing out bombs and drugs at the airport, the working pet must be under total control at all times, whether on leash or off.

Regardless of whether your dog’s sole job is being a loyal companion, it can be still vital that he learn this important basic obedience exercise.  After your first obedience lessons, such as heeling, stopping on command, sitting on command, etc. have been learned, this is time to start incorporating your come anytime called lessons into your daily training sessions.

One note about k9 training – it’s all too easy for training sessions to become dull and routine for both handler and k9.  A bored canine friend will not be receptive to learning, just as a bored handler will not be a good teacher.  This is important, therefore, to always incorporate fun things and play into each and every training session.  Incorporating a few minutes of play time before the lesson begins can do wonders for the attitude of four-legged friend and human alike.  Likewise, ending each training session having a few minutes of free play time is a great way to end on a positive note and to help the dog associate obedience training with fun and not drudgery.

Your command to stay and the command to come when called are often combined in obedience training lessons, and they do go naturally together.  Start with the dog on a loose leash, ask the four-legged friend to sit and then slowly back away.  If the pet begins to get up and follow you, return to the four-legged friend and ask him to sit again.  Continue this process until you can reach your end of your leash without your four-legged friend getting up.

After you can successfully reach the end of your leash on a consistent basis, try dropping the leash altogether.  Of course you will want to do this in a controlled environment like a fenced in yard.  After your k9 has mastered your stay command, it will be time to add your come as soon as called command.

Take up the leash again, and with your pet on the end of your leash, say “come” or “come here”. It will be often helpful to use a lure anytime instructing this behavior.  Your lure provides a visible item for your canine friend to focus on.  Educating the dog to come to the lure is a good first step in training the four-legged friend to come when called.

Repeat this procedure many times until your canine friend will consistently stay and then come when called.  After your k9 has mastered coming anytime called while attached to the leash, slowly start introducing the concept anytime the leash is removed.  As before, these training sessions must only take place in a controlled, safe environment, such as a fenced in front or back yard.

A rightly taught, obedient dog ought to respond to your call to return to its owner no matter where this is and no matter what distractions may occur.  It is therefore necessary to test the dog with distractions of your own.

If you have a neighbor, if at all possible one that has a dog of their own, try having her come over with your dog.  Have him, and your dog, stand just outside the fenced in area and repeat the come whilst called exercise with the animal off leash.  If he becomes distracted by the other dog, put the leash back on and repeat the process.  The goal is to have your dog consistently pay attention to your commands, whatever distractions may well present themselves.

Does your dog or even worse yet, your neighbor’s dog bark all the bloody time?
If so it’s pretty easy to reach your whit’s end rather quickly.

After a while you really don’t care why the little nincompoops doing it, you just want to make the barking stop. Does that sound about right to you?

Trust me, I know what you’re going through pretty well.
How would I know these feelings of frustration so intimately?

Simple, my wife got a small Poodle and the little bugger absolutely would not stay quiet for 10 minutes. I swear, if an ant walked across the road he would carry on for 20 minutes non stop. I was just about off my rocker with the little loudspeaker.

Now, please don’t get me wrong, I really love animals and I especially love dogs. I don’t know about you, but personally I love well behaved dogs. 
So, not really wanting to incur my wife’s wrath for suggesting Fido be relocated several States away just to make the barking stop, I started researching to really find a solution or at least find some other options and find them fast.

Here are a couple of the things to stop the dog barking that I discovered:

All the books said “You need to find out why in the world is the dog is barking in the first place”. And I’m thinkin yeah, right, sure! I don’t know why the little dim bulb’s carrying on, just make it stop.

But I do have to agree with them, there is good barking and bad barking. So when training your dog it is important to teach your dog the difference between nuisance barking and good barking (like if  it’s 2 am and I’m snoring keep quiet, but if you see a guy with a mask and a sack, Bark!).

As it turns out there is actually a lot of different kinds of barking, there’s reactive, territorial, separation anxiety, fear and warning barking. And without becoming a Sigmund Freud for Animal Planet tm I truthfully couldn’t tell you which was which.

I did find a few things that actually worked really well. What the heck it only took 5 hours of reading & video’s and it cost more than the dog did to buy all the books to find one that worked.

But here’s one of the tips that it said that worked really good. Every time the dog barks give it a piece of bacon with 1/2 a Prozac stuck into it (ok, ok, so that was my solution and not exactly what the book said, but the dog liked it!) Just kidding around!

No really, what the books all said was give the dog an alternate outlet. And because it might actually take me an hour and a half to watch the TV show 60 Minutes, I’m thinking, alternate outlet, WHAT! they want me to plug the little bugger into a wall socket?

Well, turns out I was wrong, they meant every time it starts yapping give him a soft toy and toss it around for a second so he gets the idea to play with it. This way when the dog starts feeling anxiety, nervousness or separation it will look for the toy and find comfort in it.

There are a ton more tips that I got at => http://stopdogbark.tripleyourinfo.com/

But I sure hope this one helps, it worked for me even better than the Prozac and at a buck a pill that stuff gets kinda spendy after a bit.