How To Prevent Your Dog Or Puppy From Embarrassing You In Public
August 19th, 2010 by Adriana Noton
The biggest and best way to help with How to prevent your dog or puppy from embarrassing you in public is through obedience classes and basic training, although there are several different ways an individual could learn how to prevent a puppy or dog from doing things they shouldn’t.
Teaching old dog new tricks is just as easy as teaching a puppy to behave. However, getting a puppy to perform basic skills like sit, stay, come and heel, which is walking next to you, should be done as early as possible so that when they are older, they know what is expected of them and will listen to their owners.
Knowing that they are going to be loved and well cared for is one of the basic things puppies need to know before they will commit to behaving for an owner. They also need to know where their limits are. Just as children, puppies need to know that there are restrictions to what is acceptable and what is not. It is worth the effort and time put in to training a puppy although it can become frustrating after long hours and sometimes the puppy wants to do other things; but sooner or later you will have a good dog.
A good dog or puppy full of energy could be most embarrassing when someone comes to your house for a visit and the animal bounds around the corner and jumps up on the guest, practically knocking them to the ground. What is more difficult is if the person visiting does not particularly care for dogs.
One of the best ways to help keep your dog or puppy from playfully attacking family members such as grandma or other visitors is to help them learn simple command such as sit, stay or down and stay. Then you could place them in the sit stay position or down stay before opening the door for your guest. A well trained dog or puppy will stay on command until you tell them ‘release’ no matter what is going on around them. This is the beauty of good training and will help cut down or eliminate the embarrassing moments.
Dog school is a great place for puppies and dogs to learn good manors and how to control their energy. It will depend on the breed of dog and the amount of time and effort put forth by the owner as to when a puppy or dog ‘gets’ the training right and learns the appropriate commands for sitting, staying and heeling next to the owner.
Another important command to help a dog or puppy control themselves is ‘leave it’. This command informs the dog that it is not okay to touch, go after or sniff whatever it is they want. An example of this would be if you and your puppy were walking along a crowded sidewalk and a child was coming towards you, you would command the dog to leave it because you don’t want the puppy to scare the child by lunging at the child, even it the puppy means no harm and just wants to play with a small person. Another time the ‘leave it’ command would be appropriate is when your dog is going up to another dog face to face. Proper dog greeting is to allow the dogs to sniff each others butt, not the face for some dogs do not like the confrontationalness that comes with a dog in their face.
In puppy or dog classes, owners and their dogs will practice what is known as the ‘meet and greet’ in which the class splits up into to groups and walks towards each other. They stop about a foot apart and put their dogs on a sit stay next to them. Then they shake hands with the other person and sometimes the teacher will have them swing their arm out over the dog and pat each other on the arm or shoulder. This exercise shows the dog that it’s okay for their ‘parent’ to interact with others while they sit by and watch. No jumping or barking is requires.
Learning How to prevent your dog or puppy from embarassing you can be a fun and fulfilling exercise in patience for both the owner and animal. It takes time and a lot of practice but if you keep at it, you will have a well behaved dog that you will not be embarrassed to take out in public or have sit next to you when company comes to your house.
Puppy training can be frustrating. Training a dog requires discipline and consistancy. When experiencing problems, consult a professional.
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