Redirecting Dog Behavior

A much more effective method of dealing with your dog's inappropriate response is to interrupt it at the onset. If your dog begins to exhibit tension or nervousness simply distract him by calling his name or taking him out of the situation that is causing him stress.If your dog is barking then he is probably not in the frame of mind for instruction. When a person is enraged, trying to communicate something to them is usually out of the question. Therefore the ideal is to stop your dog before he begins to over react. Remember that repetition is the way our dogs learn so if you can break a bad habit or stop it from beginning they will have less to unlearn. When your dog is distracted or being disobedient it is not the time to repeat commands, as all he will be learning is to ignore you. Study what the triggers are that bring on your dogs undesirable behavior and then work at interrupting them at the beginning. Then step-by-step you want to teach him what is the acceptable behavior; you can even train him with a substitute behavior to replace the old undesirable one.

Establishing new patterns