May 24th, 2009 by admin

COLLAR AND LEAD

For a St. Bernard the collar and lead that you use for training must be one with which you are easily able to work, not too heavy for the dog and perfectly safe.

TREATS

Have a bag of treats on hand. Something nutritious and easy to Swallow works best. Use a soft treat, a chunk of cheese or a piece of cooked chicken rather than a dry biscuit. By the time the dog has finished chewing a dry treat, he will forget why he is being rewarded in the first place! Using food rewards will not teach a dog to beg at the table – the only way to teach a dog to at table is to give him food from the table. In training, rewarding the dog with a food treat will help him associate praise and the treats with learning new behaviours that obviously please his owner.

COMMAND STNCE

Stand up straight and authoritatively when giving your dog commands. Do not issue commands when lying on the floor or lying on your back on the sofa. If you are no your hands and knees when you give a command, your dog will think you are positioning yourself to play.

TRAINING BEGINS: ASK THE DOG A QUESTION

In order to teach your dog anything, you must first get his attention. After all, he cannot learn anything if he is looking away from you with his mind on something else.

To get his attention, ask him, ‘school?’ and immediately walk over to him and give him a treat as you tell him ‘good dog.’ Wait a minute or two and repeat the routine, this time with a treat in your hand as you approach within a foot of the dog. Do not go directly to him, but stop about a foot short of him and hold out the treat as you ask, ‘school?’ he will see you approaching with a treat in your hand and most likely begin walking toward you. As you meet, give him the treat and praise again.

The third time, ask the question, have a treat in your hand and walk only a short distance toward the dog so that he must walk almost all the way to you. As he reaches you, give him the treat and praise again. Buy this time, the dog idea that if he pays attention to you, especially when you ask that question, it will pay off in treats and enjoyable activities for him. In other words. He learns that ‘school’ means doing great things with you that are fun and result in positive attention for him. Remember that the dog does not understand your verbal language; he only recognizes sounds. Your question translates to a series of sounds for him, and those sounds become the signal to go to you and pay attention: if he does, he will get to interact with you plus receive treats and praise.

THE BASIC COMMANDS

Teaching Sit

Now that you have the dog’s attention, attach his lead and hold it in your left hand and a food treat in your right. Place Your food hand at the dog’s nose and let him lick the treat but not take it from you. Say ‘sit’ and lowly raise your food hand form in front of the dog’s nose up over his head so that he is looking at the ceiling. As he bends his head upward, he will have to bend his knees to maintain his balance. as he bends his knees, he will assume a sit position. At that point, release the food treat and praise lavishly with comments such as ‘good dog! Good sit! Etc. remember to always praise

Enthusiastically, because dogs relish verbal praise from their owners and feel so proud of themselves whenever they accomplish a behavior. You will not use food forever in getting the dog to obey your commands. Food is only used to teach new behaviours, and once the dog knows what you want when you give a specific command, you will wean him off the food treats but still maintain the verbal praise. After all, you will always have your voice with you, and there will be many times when you have no food rewards but expect the dog to obey.

KEEP SMILING

Never train your dog, puppy or abut, when you are angry or in a sour mood. Dogs are very sensitive to human feelings, especially anger, and it your dog senses that you are angry or upset, he will connect your anger with his training and learn to resent or fear his training sessions.

TRAINING RULES

If you want to be successful in training your dog, you have four rules to obey yourself:
1 develop an understanding of how a dog thinks.
2 do not blame the dog for lack of communication.
3 define your dog’s personality and act accordingly.
4 have patience and be consistent.

‘NO’ MEANS ‘NO’

Dogs do not understand our language. They can be trained to react to a certain sound, at a certain volume. If you say ‘No, Oliver’ in a very soft pleasant voice it will not have the same meaning as

No, Oliver!!’ when you shout it as loud as you can. You should never use the dog’s name during a reprimand, just the command words, comic often use dogs trained with opposite meanings. Thus, when the comic commands his dog to SIT the dog will stand up, and vice versa.

Teaching Down

Teaching the down exercise is easy when you understand how the dog perceives the down position, and it is very difficult when you do not. Dogs perceive the down position as a submissive one, therefore teaching the down exercise using the forceful method can sometimes make the dog develop such a fear of the down that he either runs away when you say ‘Down’ or he attempts to snap at the person who tries to force, him down.

Have the dog sit close alongside your left leg, facing in the same direction as you are. Hold the lead in your left hand and a food treat in your right. Now place your left hand lightly on the top of the dog’s shoulders where they meet above the spinal cord. Do not push down on the dog’s shoulders; simply rest your left hand there so you can guide the dog to lie down close to your left leg rather than to swing away from your side when he drops.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

A dog in jeopardy never lies down. He stays alert on his feet because instinct tells him that he may have to run away or fight for his survival. Therefore, if a dog feels threatened or anxious, he will not lie down. Consequently, it is important to have the dog calm and relaxed as he learns the down exercise.

Now place the food hand at the dog’s nose, say “Down’ very softly (almost a whisper), and slowly lower the food hand to the dog’s front feet. When the food hand reaches the floor, begin moving it forward along the floor in front of the dog. Keep talking softly to he dog, saying things like, ‘Do you want this treat? You can do this, good dog.’ Your reassuring tone of voice will help calm the dog as he tries to follow the food hand in order to get the treat.

When the dog’s elbows touch the floor, release the food and praise softly. Try to get the dog to maintain that down position for several seconds before you let him sit up again. The goal here is to get the dog to settle down and not feel threatened in the down position.

TEACHING STAY

It is easy to teach the dog to stay in either a sit or a down position. Again, we use food and praise during the teaching process as we help the dog to understand exactly what it is that we are expecting him to do.

To teach the sit/stay, start with the dog sitting on your left side as before and hold the lead in your left hand. Have a food treat in your right hand and place your food hand at the dog’s nose. Say ‘stay’ and step out on your right foot to stand directly in front of the dog, toe to toe, as he licks and nibbles the treat. Be sure to keep his head facing upward to maintain the sit position. Count to five and then swing around to stand next to the dog again with him on your left. As soon as you get back to the original position, release the food and praise lavishly.

To teach the down/stay, do the down as previously described. As soon as the dog lies down, say ‘Stay’ and step out on your right foot just as you

Did in the sti/stay. Count to five and then return to stand beside the dog with him on your left side. Release the treat and praise as always.

Fetch!

Play fetch games with your puppy in an enclosed area where he can retrieve his toy and being it back to you. Always use a toy or object designated just for this purpose. Never use a shoe, stocking or other item he may later confuse with those in your wardrobe or underneath your chair.

Within a week or ten days, you can begin to add a bit of distance between you and your dog when you leave him. When you do, use you left hand open with the palm facing the dog as a stay signal, much the same as the hand signal a constable uses to stop traffic at an intersection. Hold the food treat in your right hand as before, but this time the food is not touching the dog’s nose. He will watch the food hand and quickly learn that he is going to get that treat as soon as you return to his side.

When you can stand 1 metre away from your dog for 30 seconds, you can then begin building time and distance in both stays. Eventually, the dog can be expected to remain in the stay position for prolonged periods of time until you return to him or call him to you. Always praise lavishly when he stays.

TEACHING COME

If you make teaching ‘come’ an exciting experience, you should never have a student that does not love the game or that fails to come when called. The secret, it seems, is never to teach the word ‘come.’

At times when an owner most wants his dog to come when called, the owner is likely to be upset or anxious and he allows these feelings to come through in the tone of his voice when he calls his dog. Hearing that desperation is his owner’s voice, the dog fears the results of going to him and therefore either disobeys direction. The secret, therefore, is to teach the dog a game and , when you want him to come to you, simply play the game. It is practically a no-fail solution!
To begin, have several members of your family take a few food treats and each person should celebrate the dog’s finding him with a treat and lots of happy praise. When a person calls the dog, he is actually inviting the dog to find him and get a treat as a reward for ‘winning’.

A few turns of the ‘Where are you?’ game and the dog will understand that everyone is playing the game and that each person has a big celebration awaiting his success at locating them. Once he learns to love the game, simply calling out ‘Where are you?’ will bring him running from wherever he is when he hears that all-important question.

The come command is recognized as one of the most important things to teach a dog, but there are trainers who work with thousands of dogs and never teach the actual word ‘Come.’ Yet these dogs will race to respond to a person who uses the dog’s name followed by ‘Where are you?’ For example, a woman has a 12 years old companion dog who went blind, but who never fails to locate her owner when asked, “Where are you?’

Children, in particular, love to play this game with their dogs. Children can hide in smaller places like a shower or bath, behind a bed or under a table. The dog needs to work a little bit harder to find these hiding places, but when he does he loves to celebrate with a treat and a tussle with a favourite youngster.

TEACHING HEEL

Heeling means that the dog walks beside the owner without pulling. It takes time and patience on the owner’s part to succeed at teaching the dog that he (the owner ) will not proceed unless the dog is walking calmly beside him. Pulling out ahead on the lead is definitely not accept-able.

Begin by holding the lead in your left hand as the dog sits beside your left leg. Move the loop end of the lead to your right hand but keep your left hand on the lead so it keeps the dog in close next to you.

Say ‘heel’ and step forward on your left foot. Keep the dog close to you and take three steps. Stop and have the dog sit next to you in what we now call verbally, but do not touch the dog. Hesitate a moment and begin again with ‘heel.’ Taking three steps and stopping at which point the dog is told to sit again.

WHERE ARE YOU?

When calling the dog, do not say come say things like, rover, where are you? See if you can find me! Have a biscuit for you! Keep up a constant biscuit for you! With coaxing sounds and frequent questions such as, where are you? The dog will learn to follow the sound of your voice to locate you and receive his reward.

HEELING WELL

Teach your dog to heel in an enclosed area. Once you think the dog will obey reliably and you want to attempt advanced obedience exercise such as off-lead heeling, test him in a fenced-in area so he cannot run away.

Your goal here is to have the dog walk those three steps without pulling on the lead. Once he will walk calmly beside you for three steps without pulling, increase the number of steps you take to five. When he will walk politely beside you while you take to five. When he will walk politely beside you while you take five steps, you can increase the length of your walk to ten steps. Keep increasing the length of your stroll until the dog will walk quietly beside you without pulling as long as you want him to heel. When you stop heeling. Indicate to the dog that the exercise is over by verbally praising as you pet him and say as a release word meaning that the exercise is finished and the dog is free to relax.

If you are dealing with a dog who insists on pulling you around, simply put on your brakes’ and stand your ground until the dog realizes that the Two of you are not going anywhere until he is beside you and moving at you pace, not his. It may take some time just standing there to convince the dog that you are the leader and you will be the one to decide your travel.

TRAINING TIP

If you are walking you dog and he suddenly stops and looks straight into you eyes, ignore him. Pull the leash and lead him into the direction you want towalk.

TUG OF WALK?
If you begin teaching the heel by taking long walks and letting the dog pull you along, he misinterprets this action as an acceptable form of taking a walk. When you pull back on the lead to counteract his pulling, he reads that tug as a signal to pull even harder!

Each time the dog looks up at you or slows down to give a slack lead between the two of You quietly praise him and say, ‘Good heel. Good dog. Eventu-ally the dog will Being to respond and within few days he will be walking politely beside you without pulling on the lead. At first, the training sessions should be kept short and very positive; soon the dog will be able to walk nicely with you for increasingly longer distances. Remember also to give the dog free time and the opportunity to run and play when you have finished heel practice.

SAFETY FIRST

While it may seem that the most important things to your dog are eating, sleeping and chewing the upholstery on your furniture, his first concern is actually safety. The domesticated dogs we keep as companions have the same pack instinct as their ancestors who ran free thousands of years ago. Because of this pack instinct, your dog wants to know that he and his pack are not in danger of being harmed, and that his pack has a strong, capble leader, you must establish yourself as the leader early on in your relationship. That way your dog will trust that you will take care of him and the pack, and he will accept your commands without question.

FEAR AGGRESSION

Pups who are subjected to physical abuse during training commonly end up with behavioural problems as adults. One common result of abuse is fear aggression, in which a dog will lash out, bare his teeth, snarl and finally bite someone by whom he feels threatened. For example, your daughter may be playing with the dog one afternoon. As they play hide-and seek, she backs the dog into a corner, and as she attempts to tease him playfully, he bites her hand. Examine the cause of this behaviour. Did your daughter ever hit the dog? Did someone who resembles your daughter hit or sxream at the dog? Fortunately, fear aggression is relatively easy to correct. Have your daughter engage in only positive activities with the dog, such as feeding, petting and walking. She should not give any corrections or negative feedback. If the dog still growls or cowers away from her, allow someone else to accompany them. After approximately one week, the dog should feel that he can rely on her for many positive things, and he will also be prevented from reacting fearfully towards anyone who might resemble her.