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Dog Training: How To Train Your Dog To Stop Licking “Private Places”

A nose thrust may be acceptable among dogs, but it’s not so pleasant for the two-legged visitors in their lives. Every dog can learn to greet people in more acceptable ways. The secret is to teach them an alternative to that ancient, secret handshake they know so well.

Start With A Shake

The standard greeting among people is the handshake, and dogs can learn it too. Have your dog sit, then stick out your hand, putting it slightly below her nose. Most dogs will instinctively raise a paw to meet it. If your dog doesn’t get it and won’t raise a paw, pick up her paw for her and give it a shake. Then say, “Good shake!” and give her something to eat. Keep practicing, and have other people do it too. As long as there’s the potential for food, dogs will remember this trick and try it every chance they get.

Take Her Everywhere

Dogs spend most of their time at home, and when they do get out they’re so excited and hungry for information that they can hardly keep their noses to themselves. Take them out in public more often so they meet a lot of new people. Eventually, they’ll start getting used to everyone and everything, in part because they’ll have collected so much information in the past that they won’t feel the burning need to collect more. This will make it easier for them to remember to sit and shake rather than lunge and sniff.

Quick Tip

Dogs despise the smell of minty breath spray, and you can take advantage of this to discourage them from sniffing people. When you’re going to be in a situation in which your dog will be meeting new people, arm yourself beforehand with a canister of breath spray. When she moves in for the inevitable sniff, quickly spritz some of the spray toward her mouth. Aim downward so that the irritating spray doesn’t hit her eyes. The unpleasant smell and taste, combined with the psst sound, is a very strong discouragement.

This type of “aversion therapy” works because dogs link the unpleasant experience with the behavior that caused it, and the memory will stay with them. For the most part, however, dogs learn fastest when they’re praised for doing things right, rather than scolded for doing them wrong. So reward your dog well when she sits and shakes. You should even reward her when she does nothing at all. As long as she’s not sniffing, she’s being a good dog and deserves a special treat.

Dog Training: How To Train Your Dog To Change Direction When Walking

After you and your dog have pretty much gotten the hang of heeling, your next step is to introduce your dog to changes of direction while heeling. You find out about the three essential turns - a right turn, an about-turn to the right, and a left turn.

Turning Right: To stay with you when you are making a right turn, your dog needs to speed up. And, at this stage in your training, he is not yet giving you 100 percent of his attention, and you are going to anticipate that he needs help with the right turn.

If you want your dog to pay attention to you, you have to pay attention to your dog. Learning to anticipate what he is going to do is the first step to successful heeling.

Just before you make the turn, enthusiastically say his name, make the turn, and keep moving. Using his name will cause him to look up at you and he will notice that you are changing direction, which will cause him to stay with you. Without giving him that cue, chances are that as you make the turn and go one way, he will keep going the other way.

About-Turn: An about-turn is a right turn times two. When you make your turn, keep your feet together so your dog can keep up. As you did for the right turn, use his name just before you make the turn to encourage him to stay with you.

In the event your dog has a particularly difficult time remaining at your side for the right or about-turn, you can use a treat or other object of interest to him to help guide him around. The treat is held in your right hand as you are heeling. Before you make the turn, show it to your dog by bringing the treat directly in front of his nose and using it to guide him around the turn, then give him the treat.

This approach has a potential drawback. Some dogs become overly stimulated when they know you have a treat in your hand. Make no mistake about it, he knows. If you see that your dog becomes difficult to control under such circumstances, you may want to eliminate use of the treat. The hassle is not worth the potential benefit.

Turning Left: In order to make the left turn without crowding, your dog needs to slow down as you make the turn and then resume normal speed after you made the turn. Just before you make the turn, slow down and with your left hand draw back on the leash, make the turn, and resume your normal brisk pace.

Dog Training: How To Stop Your Dog From Begging & Stealing Food

Learning to beg or steal food is the easiest of all life’s lessons for a puppy. The art is most often taught by the pup’s owners. In some cases, it is learned when food is accidentally dropped on the floor, or left unattended where the puppy can get at it.

Human taste discrimination is so crude when compared to the dog’s that many owners fail to appreciate the mistake of giving their pups little treats of the family food fare. Many times it only takes one taste of highly spiced table food to ruin a puppy’s appreciation for its less-seasoned commercial diet. The result can be a pup that turns up its nose at dog food and becomes a roaring menace around the dinner table.

The training method of extinguishing begging takes time. The time it takes depends on the duration of the habit, the pup’s tenacity, and the consistency of its owners in carrying out corrective procedures. It requires that absolutely no attention be given the begging pup, regardless of its antics in trying to gain tidbits.

In the case of food stealing, the training method of extinguishing the behavior requires even more careful control of the environment, especially when young children are involved. They usually love to share their goodies with their pets, but it is impractical to explain the cause-effect relationship to such youngsters when they complain that “Sparky jumped up and stole my ice cream cone!” Children also tend to leave articles of food around on low tables and chairs, an irresistible temptation for most puppies.

To eliminate stealing, whether it is overt (taking food from children) or covert (pilfering the thawing dinner steak), it is necessary to initiate a program of at least 4 weeks, during which no food is ever placed within the pup’s reach. It goes without saying that no tidbits should be given during this period.

Remedies that often fail include lacing some food with pepper or ammonia, saying “No-no” while tempting the pup, and physically punishing the animal when it approaches the family’s food. These fail because they require the presence of some agent other than the food, either the aversive-tasting element or the owner. When these elements are not present, the pup is rarely discouraged from stealing the food. It learns to discriminate between treated and
untreated morsels, and to avoid food in the owner’s presence.