Today, many more dog owners are on board with gentle, reward-based training using toys, treats, play and praise rather that scolding or physical disciplining. But what do you do if your dog doesn't comply to your requests? Our latest blog is especially for dog owners with important factors highlighted helping to explain why your dog may not be completing your commands, with useful tips with how to rectify these issues whilst maintaining reward based training mechanisms. 1.) Firstly it is important to highlight though there are many reasons why your dog may not comply with your wishes, the likelihood that stubbornness or wilfulness are the cause is highly unlikely. It is much more commonly a simple lack of understanding! 2.) Remember, learning is not always linear and just because your dog has performed a certain behaviour successfully once, twice, or even a hundred times, doesn’t mean he will always be able to remember what he is supposed to do in the heat of a specific moment. We can't deny that we forget and make mistakes sometimes too just as a result of a lack of memory and though dogs are pretty smart it is rather unfair to expect your dog to have a better memory than ourselves. Therefore if your dog doesn’t obey your command, the first thing to ask yourself is whether you are completely positive your dog fully understands his job. 3.) It is also important to consider the factor of competing distractions which may affect our dog's capacity to perform a command. So if your dog isn't listening to you consider whether they are distracted by their environment and other events and make sure you get your dog's 100% attention before you ask him to complete a task or behaviour. 4.) Finally, some dogs will appear to disobey because the balance of reinforcement is incorrect and another factor is motivating them such as an innate response like hunger or fear. This could be such as a nervous dog experiencing fear for some reason and therefore refusing to lie down and put themselves in a vulnerable position despite you asking them to. It can be enormously frustrating when your dog refuses to perform a well-known behaviour but remember dogs too, like us can be fallible. So instead of punishing your dog for failure develop your relationship with positive training, and in some cases be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. A range of canine and equine supplements are available from Scientific Nutritional Products. The ethos of the company is refreshing, manufacturing high specification dog supplements (glucosamine for dogs) without compromise, selling directly to customers through their website www.horsesupplementsdirect.co.uk in order to make their products exceptional value for money. For more information or to receive one-to-one nutrition advice specific to your dog contact our nutritional specialist Peter Fishpool on FREEPHONE 0800 032 7774 or Tel: 01377 254900
