Every dog works with a basic dog understanding that has been passed down from their ancestors the wolves, their instinct if you like.

A lot of owners believe they are doing the right thing in treating their dog as they would a child or allowing the dog to do as it wishes, sadly this causes a lot of stress to the dog and problems to the owner.

Even before you bring your dog home, whether a pup or rescue, you must establish the ground rules and help your dog to understand them.

Getting Home For The First Time

If your dog is allowed out on the lead, then please walk your dog around the block a few times, so it may take in all the scent in the area. Allow it to sniff other dogs (providing you have no fear of any reaction), because this is their greeting ritual, you may even notice dogs do the same to you. This is all normal behaviour. Once back at the home, please ensure that starting with the front door, you enter each room first whilst leading your dog behind.  You should allow your dog to sniff around every room and garden, before you let it off the lead.

What Do I Do If I Have Other Dogs?

After you have walked around the block with the new dog and come back to the home, allow the new dog to sniff your dog through a small gap in the door. When you see the new dog back away from the door and turn away, open the door just enough for your dog to see the new dog. They should have a sniff and then turn away again, although you may have to wait awhile. But once they have turned away from each other, open the door and walk straight through to the garden, with your dog or dogs following and allow them off the lead. Please try your best not to be fearful of the dogs meeting, as this would change your energy and could make your dog feel the need to defend you. Once the meeting is over, please put both dogs on the lead and walk them together around the block, then please follow the steps above called Getting Home For The First Time.

Talking To Your Dog

Most dog owners will talk to their dogs and believe their dogs understand them. You can talk to your dog as much as you want, because it changes your energy and facial expressions, which is what your dog will be looking for to understand you, the same as it would to understand other dogs. Although please understand that your dog will be working on the sound/tone of the words and never understand the words you use, if you use a high pitched voice, this could excite your dog and a low pitched voice, could cause your dog to be fearful (this should be used in a corrective manner, sharp and loud).

My dog wont do as I tell it to do! If you must offer your dog a vocal command, please offer a hand signal that the whole family know means what you want from your dog and you say the vocal command at the same time. Although if you use a forceful tone or hand signal, your dog may offer a calming signal to you. Like the lick of the nose or standing as still as it can. Please dont think your dog is ignoring you, these are just to offer friendship (calming signals). With all dogs, please remember that you need to be patient, a dog will only do something if it wants to do it. Offer the hand signal and wait a minimum of 15 seconds for your dog to move, before offering another. Please confirm what the signals mean with all your family, this way your family will be using the same signals and your dog will soon learn what you want from them.

Is My Dog Allowed On The Furniture Or My Bed?

Ideally No! Please be aware that your dog will lose respect for you if it can jump on the sofa or bed when it wants. So if you must have your dog up with you, then it should only be when you call your dog up. If your dog gets on the sofa/bed before being asked, call it down and wait 5 minutes before calling your dog back up. This way your dog has offered you the understanding that it wants to get up and you have indicated or directed that this is acceptable, after making him wait, to build the respect between you and your dog.

You can not stop your dog from getting on the sofa or bed while you are out the room or house, but your dog should get down without you asking it when or before you walk in the room. If you have to tell it to get down then you may need to keep your dog on the ground for a month to help regain the respect that has been lost.

My Dog Is Stupid And Stubborn Because It Never Does As I Ask

Please always consider the idea that everything a dog does it is doing it because it has been trained to do it, which includes when it does things wrong. Your dog will always want to please you and so does many things that will please you, but if you come up against a time where the dog just stands there or walks off after you have asked it to do something. This is not stubbornness, defiance or even stupidity. This is simply your dog not understanding what is wanted of it and they would rather not do anything or take themselves away from a situation they don't understand than do something wrong. Simply break the tack down into manageable bits that you know your dog understands and in an order that's wanted, then try to put it together all at the same time and you will see your dog happily do these things for you.