How to Have a Well-Behaved Dog

Communication with your dog

In order to train your dog, you need to have good communication, understand your pet’s behavior, and make yourself understood in order to comprehend one another. Unlike wolves, after thousands of years of living alongside humans, they’ve learned to read our expressions. Therefore, it’s fundamental that pet owners form a bond with their dogs.

Observe your pet, recognize its different moods and when your animal is receptive to learning. Figure out what catches your dog’s attention and what things frighten him or her.

The socialization period

Controlling your dog’s bite

A well-behaved dog is one that keeps its chewing and biting under control. Dogs need to learn this during their first three months of life. When it comes to a litter of puppies, it’s their mother who teaches them to control their bite through. We can imitate this with our pets.

If you’re playing with your pet and it starts to bite your hands, then stop the game and say “no” calmly. Make sure you don’t get your dog more riled up. At the same time, try to redirect the bite to objects like chew toys or other toys that belong to your pup. It’s important to devote whatever time it takes to teach it to control its biting and chewing. That way your dog will learn not to bite as an adult when its teeth and jaws can cause much more damage.

Teach your dog where to do its business

If you want a well-behaved dog, then you also want to teach it to “go to the bathroom” in the right place. In order to do this, you’ll need to take short and very frequent walks when your dog is a puppy. That way, he or she will start to associate the outdoors with going to the bathroom.

The best thing you can do is to take advantage of the moments after playtime, meals, or naps. These are the times when your dog will have the most need to urinate and defecate. Each time your pup does its business in the right place, you should offer a reward so that your dog associates the two things.

Positive reinforcement

The best way to have a well-behaved dog is through positive reinforcement. Each time that your animal behaves the way you want, you should reward the action with a prize. This can be a treat, praise, affections, toys, etc.

Education or training

Educating and training a canine are two different things. Many times, what we believe to be a problem with training is actually a problem with a dog’s education. For example, when one dog tends to bite other dogs.

Training consists of teaching dogs to learn certain skills. For example, to respond to orders like “stay”, “come”, “sit”, “shake”, etc. Basically, it means teaching obedience.

However, educating a dog refers to teaching dogs to go about all sorts of daily activities in a normal way. For example, going for a walk, interacting with other people and animals, mealtime, going to the vet, etc.