My wife and I have always wanted to have a dog and out of an interesting turn of events, we have the opportunity to adopt a 2 year old dog that a family friend cannot take care of anymore (they developed an illness that radically saps their energy).
Super excited but a little worried about making sure the doggo is taken care of properly. We’ll have to drive him back in our car for 3h30 and we have an old overly-affectionate cat.
What do people think? Any tips? Relevant stories? Give me your thoughts and have an awesome day!🙂
The number one secret of dog training: It is just creating a shared language between you and your pup so that they can be successful.
Are they doing something you don’t want them to? Teach them what you want them to do in that scenario instead. For instance, my dog used to sprint towards the road when he wanted to cross. I taught him to sit instead, and then we crossed whenever he asked by sitting to reinforce the much safer behavior.
The point is to teach them how to tell you what they want/need in healthy ways, and actually listen when they do what you taught them. Another example, give them a way to tell you they need to go outside (bells they can ring is a good option) and then let them out when they ask in the way you taught them.
Very true! I felt this a lot with my cat over the years. You learn their language and slowly work out a shared understanding of some body language and tone of meows.
Fortunately for us this doggo is already more or less trained (taps the front door when needing to go out), sits and stays and gives his paws. We’re just going to need to help him unlearn the tendency to associate his ball with a reward because he doesn’t know when to stop playing. I’m exhausted haha.