Doggy Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘older dog training’

training a mature dog is possible, but it needs to have at least some basic obedience. There is not much chance of teaching it to do tricks if it is a badly behaved dog in the first place.

The basic commands such as sit, down, heel etc, should be known by your dog before trick training starts, because this will make things so much easier later on. Once these have been mastered, you can start to build on them and your dog will soon be entertaining your friends with the following three simple tricks.

Begging.

Have your dog sit in a corner of the room with his/her back to the wall while you stand in front of him/her. The walls will back up your dog and give it the confidence that he/she won’t fall over if he/she lifts his/her front legs off the floor.

Take some small pieces of food and hold them above your dog whilst enticing him to reach up for it. Praise him/her every time it takes the food and repeat this procedure slowly making him reach higher each time.

Whilst encouraging the dog to reach up for the food, you have to make sure that he is keeping his haunches on the ground. This can be achieved by moving the food forwards over his/her head slightly making the dog shift its weight back over its hindlegs,which will teach him/her to keep its balance.

When you dog has practised the begging trick a number of times in the corner of the room, you can gradually start to move away from the wall and get you dog to do it where it has no back support. You should expect at this stage that the dog seems to go backwards in its learning, but this is perfectly normal until the dog can to master it by just using its own body weight.

Shaking hands.

  There are 2 parts to this trick for your dog to learn. Both, a verbal part and a non-verbal part that work together to give the dog a prompt that you would like it to do the trick.

In the first place, your dog needs to be in a sitting position. Make a single word verbal command such as ‘shake’, and at the same time reach out with your right hand until it is only a few inches from your dog’s right leg. Your outstretched hand is the non-verbal cue.

Initially, your dog may just sit motionless unsure of what to do, so with your left hand, kindly push its right leg forwards until it rests in your right hand. Once he/she has done the trick properly, praise it so that he/she knows he/she has done what you wanted it to do.

Praise the dog every time it does it successfully and practise it many times gradually reducing the amount of left hand prompting until only the verbal and non-verbal cues are all that is needed.

The main thing about training an adult dog to do these tricks is that the dog will learn at its own pace.

Do not scold the dog when he seems not to be learning, it is always better to be patient and give him/her more encouragement.

If you have adopted an older dog only to learn it has some behavior problems, don’t worry-you can teach an old dog new tricks. Sometimes people adopt dogs that they haven’t had a chance to check out first. The older dog that you are adopting may bring some behavior problems with him. Your new adopted pet may have problems such as aggression, too much barking or even potty training issues. Whichever problem the adopted dog may have, by using the right training techniques with your new pet, you can train him to be a welcome addition to the family.

Be sure to check out your new pet for behavior issues when you first get him. Check to see if your new pet has any aggression issues towards other dogs, towards people  or over his territory or food. If he has aggression problems, you must control them right away to avoid any potential biting problems.  Also, try to find out if he has any behavioral problems needing special attention, and the level of his previous obedience training-if any at all. Check out his previous training by giving him some commands and checking his responses. If he doesn’t know  the right responses to the basic commands, you’ll know he hasn’t been given any training. If your dog fearfully responds to a command, you get the idea that he may have been trained with abusive measures. You will want to be positive your new pet is already totally house trained. It is smart to check out your dog thoroughly to find out whether it has problems, so you know what behaviors need solutions first.

The quickest way to get good results training an older dog, is to follow the step by step advice of a good dog training program. A good training program helps you avoid making the same mistakes everyone always seem to make. All of the best training programs use only positive training techniques. When using positive reinforcement techniques, you give praise and rewards to your dog for correct behaviors, and teach him how you want him to behave. You will also learn how to use your body language and vocal tones with your dog in a way that he best understands. Once you know how to use your voice and body language properly you can train your dog must more effectively.

Becoming your dog’s Alpha leader, the one in charge, is the key to successful training your older dog. After you have earned his trust and respect as the alpha dog, he will be happy and eager to listen to your commands. This is the result of a dog’s natural drive to please the pack’s dominant leader.

Unless everyone in the household follows the same training regimen, your dog will be confused, and fast training results won’t be as easy to attain. Because you are now using the right training methods, your older dog will quickly learn his place within his new “pack”. By establishing yourself as the Alpha dog, your dog’s alpha leader, your training will reap much quicker results.

Training you older dog to behave his best will give you with a pet that you can be comfortable with in any social situation. You adopted your new pet to be a fun new member of your family, so don’t let any behavior issues stop that from happening. Be sure you take the time to train your old dog some new tricks and you’ll have a great pet.

Please click here for more helpful articles on dog obedience training and solving your dog’’s behavior problems.

Please click here to read my reviews of the best online dog training programs>