Its All About You
Dog training is more about you the owner than the dog. How you stand, your tone, your arm movements, the speed you move even what you are thinking about.
You’ve had a stressful day, you’re tired and then you do some dog training, but nothing is working. Your dog is not responding, is faltering and reluctant – did you take some time to listen to your tone? Dogs recognise the smallest change in pitch if you are tense this will come across in your voice often at a lower pitch, rapid and curt – if you think how other people respond to this then how do you expect your dog will behave to this?
When you choose to work your dog make sure you are in the right frame of mind giving you and the dog the best opportunity for not only successful training but enjoyable training as well.
A good way of really understanding what are you doing when training is to take a video, Smiles Dog Training can provide this service on request, or ask someone to observe. Remember dogs primary form of communication is body language, think about what your body is doing and what the dogs actually see. You’ll be amazed how just wider eyes and a smile / frown can make a big difference.
One of the main things to remember is that intense eye contact is actually threatening to a dog unlike when we talk to fellow humans – this is often the first mistake people make when working with a dog.
Eye contact is just the start, to find out more about how your behaviour can effect your dog give Sarah Miles a call to find out about her latest classes and workshops.