July 11th, 2012
By Eric Letendre
This happened a few years ago.
When it happened, I laughed my butt off.
I was working with this guy and his dog. He had a nice but very active German Shorthaired Pointer.
If you are familiar with the breed you know that these dogs are very active and need exercise. Anyway, as we were working with his dog, the guy was having a hard time getting a response.
He would say “Sit, sit, sit, sit” “Down, down down, down”, “Stay, stay, stay, stay.”
We were working in a fenced-in area and I let the dog off leash to do some recall work. I asked the guy to call his dog to him.
“Come, come, come” he said with no response from his dog. He then turned to me and said, “It’s like my dog is flipping me the bird all the time.”
I laughed because in a way his dog was telling him to bug off.
We sat down at a picnic bench and had a little chat. Here is the advice I gave to him:
1. Stop repeating commands. When you repeat a command over and over the dog learns to sit after you’ve said it six or seven times.
2. Establish leadership – dogs respond to leadership and once your dog looks to you as the leader, training becomes much easier. I then gave him a simple four-step system to establish leadership.
3. Increase rewards – behavior is reward driven. We all work to avoid pain and gain rewards. The more we are rewarded for a behavior, the better chances of the behavior occurring again.
4. Exercise – most behavior problems can be solved with enough exercise.
5. Keep a cool head – frustration can turn to anger and I have seen it happen a lot. Dog does not respond and person gets mad, takes it out on the dog. Dog now has a negative association with training – not good.
So remember these steps when you think your dog is flipping you the bird.
And if you’d like to see real world examples and videos of how this is done, check out The Ultimate Online Dog Training Course:
Ultimate Online Dog Training Course
All the best,
Eric
Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States and has been training dogs for over 20 years, teaching regular, average, every-day owners all over the world how to get the training results they want as fast as possible. Eric is also the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Improve Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
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Eric Letendre is a professional dog trainer from the United States. For more than 20 years, he has been developing dog training techniques that have worked for dog owners all over the world. Eric operates from a home office or a laptop while traveling and draws on his experience and passion for dog training to show others how to develop a dog that is truly “Man’s Best Friend”.
Eric is the author of numerous reports, the E-Book “101 Ways to Hack Your Dog’s Behavior,” “The Amazing Dog Training Man Book,” and produced and stars in his DVD “Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer.”
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