Editor’s Note: This piece is excerpted from Imagine Life with a Well-Behaved Dog by Bay Area trainer Julie A. Bjelland. Copyright © 2010 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Griffin. The book can be purchased at your favorite independent book store or online at www.webdogtrainer.com.
The human world is a pretty complicated place for dogs, and a lot of the things they do in their natural world you don’t want them to do in yours. Dogs in the wild often leap all over each other in greeting, which is why dogs have that tendency to jump on you when they are excited.
But this behavior doesn’t work for you, especially if you have a big dog. In the wild, some dogs urinate to show the other dog they recognize his dominance. That’s natural in their world, but not on your new carpet.
There are a lot of things in the human world that are not normal in the dog world.
Dogs normally explore the world and don’t do well staying in one place all day. They are not left alone for long periods of time in nature because they normally live among other dogs in groups. Therefore, it is understandable that your dog will do best if you can try to match his “normal” environment as much as possible in your human world. That involves
lots of exercise, new sights and smells, less time alone and more time with you, time to play with his dog pals, and an environment with a calm, clear, natural leader with rules that are consistent so he can understand them. Dogs in an environment more like their natural one do better and have fewer behavior problems.
We all have busy lives and it’s hard to fit a dog’s needs into our schedules. However, if you don’t make adjustments, essentially you create more problems for yourself. Skipping the daily walks might feel like it gives you more time, but you risk returning to a shredded couch or an unhappy neighbor who listened to barking all day.
If you think about it, every need of your dog’s is actually good for you, too. He needs exercise and so do you; he needs time with you, and you need his loving companionship. So how exactly do you communicate your human needs to your dog? By teaching him obedience! Obedience is more than just teaching your dog to sit, lie down, or come when called. It is a way to actually communicate with your dog. Even if you do not plan on showing your dog in a competition, teaching him obedience is valuable in many other ways.
Jumping can be controlled through teaching obedience. Since dogs listen to their “leaders” in nature, if your dog considers you to be his leader, he will listen to you. Obedience accomplishes that.
When obedience is done well, dogs feel good about themselves because you are giving them sincere praise and reward for accomplishing something.
People who practice obedience with their dogs are leaders in their dog’s eyes. This means that your dog respects your judgment and wants to do what you ask him to do. It also means he loves you more! This is important. Some people fear that using obedience with their dogs is unkind in some way. But positive-based obedience techniques, like the ones described in this book, are actually fun. When obedience is done well, dogs feel good about themselves because you are giving them sincere praise and reward for accomplishing something. This makes your dog happier and teaches him what you’d like him to do.
Nothing in dog training happens instantly. It takes practice, but it is worth every minute you put into it. Your dog will be happier, because a better-behaved dog gets to spend more time with you. You’ll be happier because you’ll know how to control your dog’s behaviors in a way that works for everyone. Wouldn’t it be fun to go to the off- leash park with your dog or go camping without a leash and feel confident your dog will stay near you and come when called? This is accomplished through obedience training. Or maybe you live in a city and want to pass by other dogs and sit calmly with a friend at an outdoor café while your dog happily lies next to you. This is also possible through obedience.
Obedience takes practice and, most important, it takes consistency. If you are clear with your dog and ask the same thing of him every time, he’ll learn really quickly. But if you sometimes allow him to jump on you when you are too tired to stop it, and other times you get angry and yell at him to stop, you create confusion — sometimes he can jump and sometimes he can’t. If you make a clear rule that jumping on you is never allowed, your dog will learn it quickly and stop doing it.
I believe that if you understand why you should do something, you are more likely to do it consistently. My goal throughout this book is to teach you why you should do one thing but not the other. Once you are consistent, learn my techniques, practice your timing, and praise genuinely, you’ll discover a marvelous thing: Your dog listens to you!
Julie A. Bjelland has 15 years of experience as a dog trainer and trained at the world renowned Guide Dogs for the Blind, an organization known for producing some of the best-trained dogs in the world. She is the owner of webDogTrainer.com, where readers can come to ask her any questions about their dog. She has two sons, Oliver and Eliot, and is the guardian of four adopted pets: Fax, Tisha, Skyress and Sebastian. She can be contacted via www.webdogtrainer.com.
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