How to Listen to Your Dog: The Complete Guide to Communicating with Man's Best Friend by Carlotta Cooper

Author:Carlotta Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dog, listen, communication, training, commands, interpret, behavior, relationship
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing
Published: 2012-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

How Training Your Dog Improves Your Communication

Training your dog requires you spend time together with a common goal. No matter which training method you are using, in order to succeed, you will need to focus on basic lessons. Each lesson should have goals that you can articulate to yourself, such as teaching your dog to sit, to lie down, or to walk on a loose leash. Your mission with each lesson will be to communicate this goal to your dog. This means that good communication will be essential to both of you. Most of the time when a dog does not do what you want him to do, it is because he is confused or does not understand what you want him to do. This is usually due to a failure in communication on your part.

The more you train with your dog, the better you will become at conveying to your dog what you want him to do. Your dog also will become better at understanding how you communicate your wishes to him. Your communication with your dog will improve, and training will become easier. However, it does take practice and work. You must train regularly.

Daily training is best. If you only train once a week, your dog will not progress. Most dogs have short attention spans, so it is better to train for 15 to 20 minutes per session, two or three times per day, instead of trying to train in one long marathon session if you can set your own training times. (If you are taking a training class the lessons probably will be longer and will occur once or twice per week.) You also should try to keep things fun for your dog. Dogs generally learn best if they are having a good time and you keep the training more like play.

Training is like any skill. The training you do with your dog will improve the more you practice it, and so will your communication. Owners and dogs that train often can develop a close bond. Dogs often seem to almost read their owners’ minds. In actuality, the dogs have been training with their owners so much that they can read the tiniest clues in their owners’ faces or movements and know what is coming next. You, too, can achieve this level of communication with your dog through training if you work hard with your dog.

Case Study: Jani and Her Dogs

Jani Wolstenholme

Newport, Rhode Island

How many dogs do you have?

I have had dogs for 35 years. I currently have two.

Some of the everyday words and phrases my dogs know are “walk,” “eat,” “go for a ride,” “cookies,” “crate,” “leave it,” “off,” “sit,” “down,” “go lay down,” squirrel,” and “birds.”

When my male’s water dish is either low or empty, he repeatedly will come to me, bark, and then run to the dish. He also runs to the front door when someone pulls into the driveway, whining, even if he doesn’t know who it is.

One time in particular, my dog and I had an obvious miscommunication.

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