Before you begin to train your dog, it is necessary to establish well-defined and clear-cut training goals and objectives. Training your dog will be a tough task in absence of clear-cut training goals and without proper analysis of her temperament.
Every dog is unique and has a distinct personality. How often do you see a dog that fails to demonstrate desired behaviors despite the best training efforts? This is mainly because of an absence of adequate training goals in line with the dog’s nature and temperament. An understanding of her personality is helpful in defining her training needs. When you know her nature and temperament you know the reasons for most of her behavior patterns.
By understanding the root of the problem, you will be in a better position to chalk out a training program that addresses those problems effectively. Thereafter you can easily set up training goals and objectives in-line with her nature and temperament. Moreover, having an insight into your dog’s personality will help you avoid possible inconveniences and damages to you, your family members and visitors.
Common Dog Traits
All puppies and dogs have some traits in common. These traits or the normal genetic make up of a dog forms the basis of most of her behavior patterns. An understanding of these common dog traits is necessary to have a basic insight of normal dog behavior.
When you become aware of normal dog traits, you automatically get logical reasons for dog’s behavior that you once considered strange and unacceptable. Now you will have a better understanding of what behaviors or habits are normal and what requires care and correction. This will be an important guideline for evolving an appropriate training plan for your dog.
Dogs are descendants of wolves and are pack animals. They have a genetic structure that is suited for living in herds. Every herd has pack leader, commonly referred to as Alpha. However, when the dog or puppy is in human association, she considers her owner as alpha.
Most of the behavioral problems are because of confusions regarding the alpha role. The puppy tends to become dominant and rowdy if she does not accept you as her alpha. In that case, she becomes arrogant and develops unacceptable behavior patterns. However, the positive news is that very few puppies would like to assume the leadership or alpha role. Most of them are happy being followers, which makes your task simpler. All you have to do is to reinforce this trait by commencing training when she is young. Try to tell her from the very beginning that you are her alpha and she has to obey you.
Puppies are extremely concerned regarding their survival and comfort. To a puppy, food has direct bearing on survival. Therefore, food is the most acceptable reward for training your puppy. It is natural for a puppy to be possessive of her food. Most of the puppies demonstrate a guarding behavior towards their food and might growl or bite if you or someone attempts to approach her while she is eating. Growling and biting behavior towards you is an indication that she has not yet accepted you as her alpha and requires corrective training.
Dogs, like their ancestors, used to live in dens. Even in human association, the puppy needs her den or a private space where she can relax and feel comfortable. Her den in your house can be an isolated corner, space under a table, sofa, or any other place where she finds herself comfortable.
Puppies are very fond of and protective for their dens or personal spaces. It is therefore necessary for you to provide her a den. If you do not provide her a personal space, she will choose it herself. It is therefore better to provide her a personal space while she is young. If she chooses an undesirable space like your sofa or bed while she is young, it will be very difficult for you to stop her from using that space when she grows old.
Assessing Your Puppy’s Temperament
Your puppy has some specific personality traits that are unique to her. These traits are responsible for her behavior patterns and activity levels. She can have traits such as arrogance, submissiveness, docility, rowdiness, playfulness, depression, activeness, laziness, friendliness and shyness.
By understanding your puppy’s inherent characteristics, you can easily differentiate between natural and unnatural behavior. This understanding will help you in deciding what behaviors and traits require attention. For example, a shy puppy needs more socialization. On the other hand, a fearful puppy needs training for correction of submissive urination and fear of strange and unusual sounds. After analyzing your puppy’s behavior, you can easily determine training and evolve a training methodology that would be helpful for correcting undesired traits and behavior.
However, the final selection of training objectives, goals and methodology is dependent on some other factors. They are:
- Objective and purpose for which you have adopted the puppy
- Breed characteristics and physical structure of your puppy
- Size and type of your home
- Size of your family
- Type of any other dogs and pets that stay in the same household
- The person in-charge of puppy training and her age and activity level
- Time available for puppy training
- Where do you propose to house the puppy (indoors or outdoors)
