Train Your Dog Positively: Understand Your Dog and Solve Common Behavior Problems Including Separation Anxiety, Excessive Barking, Aggression, Housetraining, Leash Pulling, and More!

Ultimately, punishment-based techniques emphasize what not to do instead of helping a dog learn and understand what to do.

Finally, once your dog has learned a particular action or behavior, continue to reinforce it in everyday life, and never miss a chance to reward behavior that you like, even if it’s just a simple “good girl”—your dog will love you for it!

Any activity, whether it’s a simple game in your backyard or something you do with your dog as a team sport, will keep you both mentally and physically fit while building a stronger relationship between you.

It’s more likely that modern domestic dogs are descended from solitary feral dogs that scavenged human garbage for food than from true familial packs.

Some dogs are prone to compulsive self-grooming on a particular area of the body, causing wounds to form and making them hard to heal. This is called acral lick dermatitis (ALD) or lick granuloma,

However, when I taught them to ignore the barking but reward the quiet with attention and play time, they saw how effective this technique was.

dogs have emotions but not a human’s level of complexity and ability to extrapolate.

In general, the best prescription for most barking issues—regardless of the cause—is increased exercise and mental stimulation, which helps refocus a dog’s mind and tire her out.

More precisely, the extent to which they care about what others think of them is limited to self-interest and well-being.