dog training help/tips

[Sik Laxer]

i hav a yr old dog thats really been a pain in the butt lately. sometimes he's really good, and other times he's just uncontrollable. for example, he jumps onto the kitchen counters, sometimes he marks his territory inside. what should i do to change this? if you need more information just ask.
thanks

[CoUgArLAX18]

Well I'm not a dog training expert but we did train our dog ourselves. One thing that is important is that no matter how cute the dog is, you still have to let it know when it did something wrong. You should also be pretty consistent for what the consiquences for what he did wrong are.

[cavgoalie7]

If you can watch the dog whisperer, its on the National Geographic channal, it will give you some ideas

[raykessler]

did you just get the dog? cause if youv had it for a while it will be a lot harder to train it. Honestly i would say hire a dog trainer who works with you and shows you how to handle the dog, thats what we did and all of our dogs have turned out great.

[Sik Laxer]

i actually hav 2 dogs, both are atleast a year old, and we've had them for atleast a year as well

[Nigel_Tufnel]

I have a 4 month old golden retriever puppy. I've found that the key is balancing praise when you dicipline. If she starts chewing me (as she is deep in the teething stage), I tell her, "Abby, no biting!" As soon as she stops, sits and aknowledges this, I tell her "good girl."

Make sure you stay dominant. Make sure you stay above the dog and stare down; let them know who's boss.

[gigo567]

Tssst!!!

Seriously though, hire a trainer or try obedience school.

[CTLaxer]

Best way to get a dog to stop peeing/marking inside the house is to go outside and pee with them. Seriously. When they see you, the dominant being, peeing outside, they'll think that's the place to do it.

Never yell at your dog, it doesn't understand and it gets scared and all you succeed in doing is looking dumb and scaring your dog.

Don't punish your dog after the fact. If you catch him/her doing something in the act, by all means reprimand the dog (not with violence), but if you find a pee stain somewhere, there's no point in yelling at the dog because it has no memory of what it did like a person does.

Do not repeat your commands more than 2-3 times, and you shouldn't be giving the dog treats if they don't do the command on the first or second try. Treating them after you've said the command 10 times and they finally get it teaches the dog it's ok to do the command when they want and not when you want. Depending on the breed, your dog could learn something within the first 5 tries, or it might take significantly longer, but every dog can learn.

Spend 10-15mins 2-3 times a day working with your dog on any given command(s). They need constant reinforcement and they love the encouragement from doing what their owners want.

This may sound harsh, but I do it to maintain dominance over my rottweiler; don't feed it one day every once in a while. I also make her move every time she's laying down in my way. She is crate trained, and usually sleeps in her kennel, but I let her sleep on my bed sometimes, and sometimes she's on the floor, and sometimes in the kennel. I change it up to keep her on her toes and to let her know that I'm the dominant one of the pack and that she isn't in control. Another thing you can do is not give your dog any affection for a day, just do basic commands required for everyday stuff like come or drop it if the dog has something in it's mouth, but no praise and no petting/rubbing/scratching. All of these things are meant to establish dominance so your dog will get into the pack mentality of it not being the alpha. It's especially important to do if you have a large breed like I do, or a breed that is very controlling.

Lastly, things that might seem cute, since they're puppies, but won't be once they're full grown should not be allowed to happen. Your puppy jumping into your lap and licking you is cute when they're small, but when it grows up to be 100lbs with a head as big as yours...it's not cute when they try the same thing. I know it seems boring and not fun to reprimand your puppy from doing the cute puppy things, but just consider if you want it doing the same things as an adult for the rest of it's life.

If you give your specific breed, and specific problems, I'm sure we can get you some solid methods of curbing problems and training your dogs.

[chslax24]

This may sound harsh, but I do it to maintain dominance over my rottweiler; don't feed it one day every once in a while..
Jeeze man. It seems like you know what you're talking about though. As long as your not starving the dog... I suppose it's ok.

[CTLaxer]

If she starts chewing me (as she is deep in the teething stage), I tell her, "Abby, no biting!" As soon as she stops, sits and aknowledges this, I tell her "good girl."


Side note on your training. It's good that you're stopping your pup from biting and teething on people, but you really shouldn't be giving praise after saying "No" to something. It can confuse the dog at times since generally people use a harsh tone with No and reprimands and a high pitched playful tone for praise. It can get your dog in the routine of doing the bad behavior so it can be told to stop so it gets the praise. Just something you should be careful of. I find myself doing it from time to time, as I'm sure most people do, despite the fact that none of us should be doing it.

Having a rottweiler, teething/biting behavior like this was a concern for me. Whenever my dog would start mouthing and teething my hands or body parts, i would pinch the inside of her mouth (when she was trying to bite or teeth) and say "ouch" is a very sad almost crying manner. Also, when she would start to play really rough, i would say "gentle" and stop playing with her till she calmed down. As a 3yr old dog now, whenever you're playing with her and she's getting rough all you have to do is say "gentle" and she'll stop whatever she's doing and start licking the crap outta you. Also, if she's biting down on someone all they have to do is say "ouch" or just part of the word, or sound like they're crying and she'll let go and start licking. I did that on the off chance that she was being tormented by a kid or a person and ended up grabbing hold of them. I didn't want to have my dog be one of those dogs in the head lines. Basically, any normal human reaction to a dog attacking them is a trigger for my dog to let go and lick.

When she was a puppy, every time I would feed her I would stand or sit next to her and put my hand on her head or her mouth or her neck, or pet her etc. This was so she wouldn't get aggressive with her food or with her toys. Incase myself, or someone was trying to take food or a toy, or something she shouldn't have away from her, I didn't want her acting in an aggressive, possessive way and now she doesn't.

[CTLaxer]

Jeeze man. It seems like you know what you're talking about though. As long as your not starving the dog... I suppose it's ok.

Well, she only gets fed once a day, 3 cups of dry food. She gets a good amount of treats during the day from training all the time, so it's not like she's starving. I also never not feed her for more than one day and it's only done once every couple of months. My dog is 100+ lbs, she's far from starving :agree: It's like you or I skipping lunch or dinner, but getting a snack here or there throughout the day, not a big deal, but to the dog psychologically and mentallity wise, it lets them know who's in charge.

[chslax24]

Well, she only gets fed once a day, 3 cups of dry food. She gets a good amount of treats during the day from training all the time, so it's not like she's starving. I also never not feed her for more than one day and it's only done once every couple of months. My dog is 100+ lbs, she's far from starving :agree: It's like you or I skipping lunch or dinner, but getting a snack here or there throughout the day, not a big deal, but to the dog psychologically and mentallity wise, it lets them know who's in charge.
Ok good. lol
Sounds like she's pretty big
I forgive you.