The earliest and most controversial training that must be started is to train the puppy to excrete outside the house. Excretion training is the best time to use positive reinforcement, that is, all kinds of food and toys to reward. In addition to rewarding pets for doing the right thing and strengthening this behavior, another secret is to predict the excretion time of pets. Dogs usually excrete after walking, eating, drinking or playing, or when you are not careful. In order to make the training effective, we must carefully observe the dog's eating and drinking, and set a safe area, that is, the place where the dog will never excrete. The ideal safe area is the kennel. If there is no dog cage at home, try to let the puppy solve it in the bathroom or laundry room.
Second, the obedience of the puppy.
Using puppy obedience is an interesting topic in training. Puppies are usually considered to be six months old before they can start formal training. But many puppies often learn some bad behaviors before they are six months old. A puppy who is thought to be unable to learn to sit quietly can learn to bite every shoe it finds or jump on every guest. It is believed that dogs can only learn [bad] behavior, but not [good] behavior, which is the root of this contradiction. The solution is to thoroughly review the methods of teaching puppies, rather than doubt their learning ability. Traditionally, the main way to train dogs is to force them to obey. Although coercion is an effective tool to punish serious misconduct, it may also be used by coercion. If you want dogs to learn new behaviors, the effect is not so good. This coercion tends to suppress all behaviors, whether good or bad, not just bad; Too much training for dogs too early may lead to training failure. If you want to avoid this situation, you should focus on using positive rewards to train the right behavior.
Third, new tools.
As we all know, when training dogs, one should tell them clearly [No! ) signal. In fact, when the dog is doing the right thing, a signal to praise the dog is equally important. If there is no such signal, it is equivalent to forcing the dog to guess and guess which behavior can be rewarded. This wrong way of trying takes a lot of time, and the dog will accidentally guess, and there is no reward in the process of trying. Think about it: there is no return, it takes a long time to try to succeed; Puppies naturally choose to give up learning and even decide that [learning] is not worth the candle. A simple [good boy] signal can make the puppy quickly determine that he has done something right, and also make him feel that the reward is not out of reach; Naturally, puppies will also like learning more.
Fourth, link the signal with the reward.
The first step to make the signal "good dog" effective is to choose a short and easy-to-identify password. A simple example is to abbreviate the sentence "good dog, good puppy, mommy's little baby" into the password "good". Say "good boy" at first and give the puppy something to eat. Repeat about twenty times. Note: the order of saying [good] first and then giving food is very important; There is a pause between saying "good boy" and giving food. Soon, the puppy will respond to the password you choose and start expecting you to give it an award. In other words, you have successfully established this password. Now you have a powerful tool that can quickly tell the dog that it has done the right thing.
V. Use of themes
Most puppies will resist unpleasantly when they are forced to sit down. A better way is to arouse the dog's instinct to follow the target. When someone puts some food on the puppy's nose, it will naturally turn its head as the food moves; If the food is removed, the dog will stand up and follow the food. We can try this method and train the dog to sit down, and we will find the advantages of this method. First of all, find a piece of food of moderate size that dogs like to eat. Remember, don't choose dog biscuits that are too hard or chewy. Because dogs may spend a lot of time chewing prizes, the training progress is too slow. Sit in front of the puppy, put the food on its nose and move it to its forehead. Don't move the food too fast, lest the dog can't find where the food is for a while. In addition, don't hold food above your head, or the dog may try to stand up on its hind legs instead of sitting down. If the puppy wants to jump on you, or jump on food, tell him in his usual tone: [Wrong] Get the food back quickly. With luck, the puppy will naturally lean back and sit down with food. As soon as it sits down, it says "good boy" and then gives it food. If your dog doesn't sit down, don't be discouraged; Because some puppies will naturally step back and even stand up to get food. Generally speaking, the first time you try to train a dog to do a certain action, if the puppy doesn't do a complete set of actions, try to make it do some actions. Take training a dog to sit down for example. If you hold food above its nose and its hind legs relax, you should praise it and give it food. Continue the same training and try to relax the dog's hind legs every time. In this way, the dog will slowly learn to sit down. Try not to lose patience, or press the puppy's back to sit down. The significance of this training method is to induce the puppy to learn by [rewarding] rather than [forcing] the puppy. If you can successfully get the puppy to sit down every time, you can continue the next training. Follow these steps, and you will get surprising results soon: 1. Say [sit down] to the puppy. 2. Move the food to the front of its forehead (the puppy should sit down at this time). 3. praise [good boy]. 4. Give it food. This kind of training can be easily extended to the action of "stopping in place". The way to do this is to pause for a few seconds or take a step or two back before you say "Be good". If the dog wants to stand up before you say "good boy", say "wrong" to it and do it again. If the dog stays where it is, say [OK] to it. Give it a reward and let it know that you like it. The secret is: don't always say "sit down, sit down, sit down" to the dog, just say it once. The goal of this training is that the dog will respond as soon as you say the password, not after two or three times. Don't yell at the dog like the squad leader in the army. This can avoid the dog's timidity and make it feel that learning is an interesting experience.
Sixth, train the puppy [coming]
Training a dog, when you call it, it will come to you. This is an important behavior training. Dogs can learn the following steps quickly: 1. Ask the puppy to sit down. Step 2 take a step back. 3. Say [come] to the puppy. 4. Put the prize under your feet and make sure the dog sees the prize. The puppy should get up at this time and want to eat the prize. 6. Say [good boy] to the puppy before its mouth touches the prize. 7. Extend the sitting time of the puppy and the distance between the prize and the puppy. 8. Try to say [coming] to the puppy on occasions other than training.
Seven, how to use punishment
When training puppies, we must establish the concept that punishment is used to correct inappropriate behavior. In the past few years, punishment has almost become a taboo. Many people mistakenly believe that punishment is cruel, even a useless training tool. In fact, as long as the right way and time are used, it is quite effective when it is used to prohibit puppies from doing certain behaviors. The traditional punishment is usually imposed at will with the owner's mood long after the dog makes a mistake. These old-fashioned punishment methods are not so much training as revenge for disobedience of dogs. It is respectable to train puppies in a completely positive way, but few people know how to use punishment correctly to achieve the purpose of training. In the depressed state of not being trained, most owners will adopt old-fashioned punishment methods, such as spanking dogs. Ironically, although the social atmosphere has changed and people no longer use traditional punishment methods, the cases of animal cruelty have increased. In order to get rid of this contradiction, we have to rethink our moral concept of punishment and how to use this powerful training tool correctly. We usually think that a virtuous person will never cause pain to his puppy. But this argument is good in theory and impossible in practice. Take the puppy to the vet as an example: we let the vet give the puppy an injection, draw blood and rough touch; When the puppy is big enough, it may even be stabbed and ligated. If you still insist on "don't let the puppy suffer", it is really hypocritical. We will make dogs uncomfortable or even painful for health reasons; But I don't want to punish the puppy because of the training requirements. To change this prejudice, we must revise our moral concept and take the principle of "no harm to dogs" instead of hypocritically insisting on "no harm to dogs".
Eight, correct the habit of throwing people.
For example, if you want to get rid of the dog's habit of jumping on guests correctly, you don't have to hurt it. First, you have to find something that dogs really don't like-such as a water gun or a spray pipe filled with water. Then, try to let the dog connect the water gun with the signal [don't do this again] (you can use the password [don't do this]). This password is telling the puppy that this behavior will be punished. The timing of "no" is very important: the puppy must be told at the moment when it makes an incorrect action, and the action of spraying water can be delayed for a few seconds. For example, a puppy jumps at people-1. The puppy began to jump. 2. Say [no] to it. 3. Spray water on the puppy. 4. Ignore for a while (about one to two minutes). Continue this process until the dog stops jumping. 6. The next time the puppy starts to jump, say [sit down] to it. If it sits down, give it a reward. It should be noted that although the general training rule is that puppies will be rewarded if they do it right; But in fact, if dogs accidentally associate this reward with the wrong behavior pattern, problems will arise. For example, the puppy jumped on his mother, and her mother shouted [No] and sprayed water on the puppy. The puppy sat down and his mother rewarded him. In this way, dogs may mistakenly think that as long as they can stand the feeling of being sprayed with water, they will be rewarded by their owners. It is best to wait until the bad behavior is completely corrected before awarding the prize to strengthen the impression.
Nine, prevent the puppy from biting.
Another situation of using punitive education method is to prevent dogs from biting indiscriminately. To prevent dogs from biting indiscriminately, the first line of defense is to keep dogs from touching things they shouldn't bite. Put the shoes in the shoe cupboard and close the door; Put expensive books on the bookcase, not on the coffee table. In short, put away all the precious things and stay away from the puppy. However, although it is a good idea to put things away, there are two fatal disadvantages to this practice. First of all, it doesn't teach puppies to avoid dangerous things and places. Second, most owners underestimate the puppy's ability to find something to chew. The only way to ensure the safety of the dog's environment is to teach him what to play with and what to stay away from. The first step in training is to teach the dog this code. No matter the timing of saying "no" is right or not, good training products can be used in this training-extension line. Wires wrapped in rubber insulators are one of the most dangerous things for unsuspecting puppies. For the puppy, the touch and bite force of the extension cord are exactly the same as the power cord of general electrical appliances, except that the extension cord is not plugged in. Put the extension cord in front of the puppy, then leave its sight and hide in the corner to observe its movements (you can also observe it with a mirror). As soon as the puppy found that the new toy began to bite, he immediately said [No! ], and spray water on it; Then give it a plush toy to bite. Do this exercise regularly until it becomes taboo. At the same time, this method can also be used in training to prevent dogs from biting shoes, books, magazines or other things. If we continue to teach puppies to bite only what they should by praising or stroking, the behavior of indiscriminate biting will be greatly reduced.
Ten, limit the range of activities of dogs.
If you want to stop the puppy from wandering around as soon as possible, you must set a boundary that it must never cross. Many people will use fences to keep puppies, but although fences can keep puppies, they are very inconvenient to use. It's best to use a rope to limit the dog's range of motion. First, go to the hardware store and buy a colored rope. Then put a small piece at the door or porch. Put the puppy on one side of the rope and sit on the other side. When the puppy wants to cross the rope, tell it not to, and then spray it with water. Put the puppy back on the other side of the rope. When the puppy wants to cross the rope again, tell it [don't] and spray it with water. Repeat this training until the puppy knows not to cross this rope. Gradually increase the range around the rope until the rope surrounds the whole house. Soon, you won't need fences or anything like that. On the contrary, you will build a fence in the puppy's heart.
Eleven, early training is the foundation.
If you want to have a well-behaved puppy, early training is very necessary. Sending the puppy to a special training school and the guidance of a personal trainer are all effective training methods. Start training the puppy as soon as possible, and when it grows up, it will become a dog that makes you proud; Not a bad dog who protests everywhere and even forces you to move.