A friend of mine just got a dog, and he asked me for advice. I proceeded to send him a tome. I figure I may as well put the advice here. This is my dog. His name is Bojack. He's pretty cool I guess. (When I see people walking their dogs, I angrily think about how my dog is cuter than their dog) Here's the advice I gave my friend: Let's see, I got bojack when he was big, though still a bit puppish and not great at peeing outside. my first suggestion is to buy a shload of carpet cleaner second suggestion is to take her outside every thirty minutes. in a couple of weeks you could up it to every hour, then every two hours. That's mostly how I got bojack to be good about peeing outside. third suggestion is to kennel train. I have a pamphlet somewhere. give me a sec I can't find it. here's a rundown and you can look up more specific information elsewhere. Feed your dog in the kennel. don't shut the door, just put the food bowl in there and let her eat. When she's done, she's done. After a week or two of that, you can start training her to go into the kennel (idk how training goes with younger pups, it might be early to start training word commands). The eventual goal is that the dog goes to the kennel immediately/enthusiastically every time you give the command. Reward it EVERY TIME (none of this variable reward bullshit, the dog is going to be stuck in there for a few hours, the least you can do is give it a treat). Also, kennel your dog up every time you leave the house for at least a year. None of this free range shit. It's only after a year that your dog has well-established habits, and you can start leaving it in a room, and then EVENTUALLY free reign of the house Older dogs behave better than younger dogs. Tired dogs behave better than fresh dogs Think ahead about the sorts of things you want your dog to be able to do. The most important thing for me was for bojack to drop something when I told him to. The worst thing I could imagine would be my dog biting some kid and not letting go. Here's a youtube channel I watched for how-tos on this and other topics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZzFRKsgVMhGTxffpzgTJlQ Dogs are highly social and will pay attention to you for cues on their behavior. That is to say, your actions strongly impact the behavior and general temperament of the dog. You are a skinner box. If the dog does something you don't want it to do, don't reinforce it. If it does something you want it to do, positively reinforce it IMMEDIATELY (within a couple seconds, if you wait longer, the association between reward and the behavior you're trying to reinforce gets weak). Likewise, if it does something bad and you punish it, punish immediately, and then give a command that the dog can obey that you can reward (I have bojack sit, stay, come). Rewarding positive behavior should happen six times as frequently as punishing negative behavior. Never hit your dog. I haven't really focused on teaching bojack tricks. If I'm training something new, it's usually functional. That's just my preference. (caveat, when I'm feeding him, I ask him where I should put the food, and he points at the bowl. That's kindof fun)
The things I think are important to teach my dog are, broadly, things to keep him alive (sit, stay, wait - since I don't have him on a leash nowadays, full disclosure, I had him for a year and a half before I even thought about doing that), and things to keep me from hating him (jumping at me, eating food that I didn't give him, sitting and waiting while I fill his bowl, etc). As you go through your new daily routine, think about how the dog is behaving and how your actions elicit different behaviors. Then choose the actions that elicit the behaviors from the dog that make you like the dog better.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorIt's bad right now. It'll get better. Archives
April 2020
Categories
All
|