Remember to enforce good behavior

Remember to enforce the behavior that you want immediately. Don't keep repeating a command over and over...the dog should respond to the first command. This process can be long. A month is certainly not enough, even a year may not be, but you?ll reap rewards for your diligence. But if it?s that simple, why do we have so much trouble getting our dogs to come? Probably because we didn?t do the above every time we wanted the dog to come to us. By not insisting Fido come every time we called him and on the first command to come when we started our training, we taught him he didn?t really have to do it.

Your dog learns a negative lesson if, after you?ve called him and he just sits there or trots off, you start chasing him around the yard. Wanting to throttle him when you finally catch him is a perfectly understandable human reaction. FIGHT IT OFF! Unfortunately, acting on these impulses will set you back even farther ? your dog will start to fear you, particularly when you?re angry, and will try to put even more distance between you and him in the future.