Thread: Teaching NO !

Whatever I write here I am sure to get a bollocking about it but here goes...

How old is the dog...a puppy should have learnt the required response to the verbal command NO at an early age...if it hasnt done anything that is deemed by us as being not the behaviour we want, then I would be worried

The trouble is that a pattern can emerge with the negative command/s...we can be guilty of letting the dog get away with some behaviour...ok you hairy sod, do what you want then, and so the dog does, we after 30 seconds walk away...this is bad...we have to mean what we say...we can also be guilty of setting our dogs up to fail...who left the fffffffing gate open...the dog certainly didnt open it.

There is the instance of where some think that when you blow the recall or stop you should go and get the dog, take them back to the approximate place they were when you blew the command and start again...I do not know how they ever mean to catch up with a flying sonic boom!! But as Ben O Williams writes, when the dog comes back do not beat it or be overtly harsh with the voice...praise the dog...it has, afterall, come back to you. And in my thinking, you want your dog with you, that is how it should be. You see it on videos and in the field...people constantly whistling at their dogs, yelling at them...it all gets hohum to them, like a nagging wife or husband...it all becomes just another noise...they are taking the micky out of us because we have not set the parameters up right in the first place.

It is not about beating the snot out of them when they disobey or carry on with a behaviour that we do not want...it is about changing their behaviour with praise being the reward.

PS...re dog and food...make the dog come to you, command the sit and then present the food bowl. Make it an exercise. The food will become the reward along with your praise. My dogs will not be fed until they have got themselves settled and behaving.