Give Your Dog Some "Manners": Teach Her Where And What She Can Eat
Every dog owner more or less is informed how to feed his dog. But how to make your dog to behave with the food properly? Good question. Well, you will just have to educate your dog right. ??And what is education anyway? After all, every day we face different situations and our response to them consciously or unconsciously, is already a kind of education. Here, we liked some behavior and we praised the dog, there - we did not and immediately punished the dog. Sometimes we just want to spoil our dogs a little bit and we give them treats for just nothing. And it goes like this every day, and our four-legged friends grow and absorb ??then the first, the second and the third.
In the end you get what you put in your dog by yourself. Unconscious education, without any principles and laws makes some sort of a "reckless" creature out of your dog. And you can not control the dog's behavior. Her manners are shocking not only for you but also for everyone around you. ??She suddenly barks or picks from the road ??the "leftovers" and she is simply not responding to your commands. ??And above all this remember - it is very difficult to correct bad behavior in the adult dogs. After all, they find their behavior natural and they remember everything since the "puppy" age. Eating food, that occurs on the path is laid down in the dogs by nature, like in humans - to eat using their hands. And the difficulty lies in how to wean the animal from the ancient instinct with a millennium of experience?
The first difficulty lies in training the dogs with imprinting. The dog is remembering the first thing, she saw. For example, if a dog-mom ate a piece of food lying outside of the bowl, then the puppy will do the same. If such a situation will be repeated for a second time, the dog as an adult will be unconsciously repeating "captured" in her memory behavior.
As another difficulty can be considered our attempts to wean the dog from the instinct of "foraging" with all sorts of obstacles, arguing that the animal gradually ceases to respond to the stray food. On the one hand your actions are correct, but on the other hand, you can not really follow your dog always and everywhere. Here comes the rule of "unplanned" reinforcements.
Very often, a reason your dog is looking for "something edible" lays in the dog's ??poor diet. Many dog owners are taking their pets not as a carnivore, but as a herbivore. The diet of these dogs includes food that is not matching the needs of a dog's body. Instead of meat she is fed with rich in carbohydrates and cooked food. Hunger and the need for a growing body makes the dog to constantly ??search for more food or for the other kind of food.
To protect your dog from the wrong deeds, it is important to teach her a few rules of a "food behavior".
Rule number one. It is important that your dog will eat only from her bowl or your hands. Do not let any other kind of feeding. Wherever you are, it is desirable to serve the dog food only in containers. Such behavior will fulfill your dog is thinking only of the bowl.
Rule number two. Command. This means that from the very young age, you accustom your dog to start eating only with your permission. Specifically you are producing the sense of self-control in your dog. For example, when feeding a puppy, stop him in front of a full bowl for 15-30 seconds and only then give the command to eat. As they grow older, increase endurance, bringing up a habit for your dog to start eating only on your command.
Rule number three. Avoid eating of food that has fallen. When feeding the dog, show by your behavior that what falls outside of the bowl, or is not in your hand, can not be eaten. You do not need to beat a puppy or yell at him, just hold him and then offer another piece from your hand. Leave a fallen piece to lie on the floor until your dog finishes the food in the bowl and then just put it to the garbage - in any case never feed your puppy with the fallen piece.
For your dog to know the rules it will be helpful to provide her with a special classes. ??Start to educate your puppy from 2-3 months of age. When feeding, you can specially on purpose drop a piece of food while watching the reaction of a puppy. If he goes after the fallen piece - pull him away immediately and feed from your hand. As your puppy will grow older, teach him not to react to the fallen pieces of food. Teach your dog to sit longer beside the full bowl, while feeding her from the hand with some nice treats.
If you are walking and driving a dog on a leash, try to throw around some pieces of food. This technique will let you to know how the dog has learned the rules. Once the animal is stretched out to your hand, but not to the fallen piece, you can praise yourself!
Rule number four. Do not let your dog to eat from the other people's hands. Make it as a rule for your dog not to take any food from the hands of strangers in any situation. In this case, the dog should not react to someone else's hand with aggression or fear. As in urban areas some little children may want to feed the dog, and in this case the dog's behavior plays a big role.
To train a dog to perform such behavior is quite real. It is important that your dog had learned that the stranger is never feeding her. Even if he is stretching out his hand with a piece of food, he just will not give it to the dog. ??And here once again it is good to notice that in this case the dog should not be producing any feelings of aggression or cowardice.
The correct response in the dog is achieved through the special training. For such classes you may attract ??friends and relatives. They need to perform the following action: show the dog a tasty treat in the hand, and when she comes closer - clamp the food in a fist. It is desirable that the helpers were as much as possible. ??If people are always the same, the puppy quickly learns his lesson and the result may be negative. When your puppy refused to take the food from someone's hand - immediately prise him yourself.
It is important in such exercises, that feeding behavior is not completely denied. Puppy grows and ??for him it is quite natural to look for more food. If there is none available, the dog will start to look for the food "on the side".
Rule number five. Perform all of the rules described above. There should be no exceptions. All these rules are clear of "not getting food" from another source. That is how the dog will start to understand: there is no reason to go for something, that will not be given anyway. ??Danger in this situation may come as a "accidental" eating of food that is not from your hand. It is desirable to eliminate such behavior, or all of your classes will be done for nothing. And the process of your dog's education will become much more difficult.
Remember, negligence in raising a dog is not allowed. If you're a bad teacher, you provide a negative effect on the dog's behavior. She will not learn anything good, but - in the opposite - strengthen in her misunderstandings. Unfortunately, in this case only ??the "painful" signal will help - indicating the food ??outside of the bowl or the palm of your hand ??as a threat.
Perhaps the food reflex is the strongest one in dogs and the most difficult to fight. Therefore, there are many ways to organize a proper nutrition. As mentioned above, it is exactly the unhealthy diet that leads your dog to the wrong actions. The dog will start to act as a "food getter".
Very positive effect comes with the "second rule" - to eat only on the command of the owner. The following rules determine the eating places - only from a bowl or hand of the owner. To break the habit of picking ??the street food, a dog can wear a muzzle or you can give the command to carry something (if your dog is taught to retrieve already).
Positive action may be developed with an incompatible behavior. During the walk you teach a dog to bring you the different items in exchange for the treats. You may also cover the "forbidden" pieces of food with pepper or something else spicy, that will not harm your dog's health, but give him a bad feeling for this kind of food.
All you have to do basically - to choose the right for you and your dog method of education and stick to it. Take your four-legged friend seriously and responsively, and you will never have to be ashamed of his behavior or to worry about his health.

Every dog owner more or less is informed how to feed his dog. But how to make your dog to behave with the food properly? Good question. Well, you will just have to educate your dog right. ??And what is education anyway? After all, every day we face different situations and our response to them consciously or unconsciously, is already a kind of education. Here, we liked some behavior and we praised the dog, there - we did not and immediately punished the dog.

Sometimes we just want to spoil our dogs a little bit and we give them treats for just nothing. And it goes like this every day, and our four-legged friends grow and absorb ??then the first, the second and the third.

In the end you get what you put in your dog by yourself. Unconscious education, without any principles and laws makes some sort of a "reckless" creature out of your dog. And you can not control the dog's behavior. Her manners are shocking not only for you but also for everyone around you. ??She suddenly barks or picks from the road ??the "leftovers" and she is simply not responding to your commands. ??And above all this remember - it is very difficult to correct bad behavior in the adult dogs. After all, they find their behavior natural and they remember everything since the "puppy" age. Eating food, that occurs on the path is laid down in the dogs by nature, like in humans - to eat using their hands. And the difficulty lies in how to wean the animal from the ancient instinct with a millennium of experience?

The first difficulty lies in training the dogs with imprinting. The dog is remembering the first thing, she saw. For example, if a dog-mom ate a piece of food lying outside of the bowl, then the puppy will do the same. If such a situation will be repeated for a second time, the dog as an adult will be unconsciously repeating "captured" in her memory behavior.

As another difficulty can be considered our attempts to wean the dog from the instinct of "foraging" with all sorts of obstacles, arguing that the animal gradually ceases to respond to the stray food. On the one hand your actions are correct, but on the other hand, you can not really follow your dog always and everywhere. Here comes the rule of "unplanned" reinforcements.

Very often, a reason your dog is looking for "something edible" lays in the dog's ??poor diet. Many dog owners are taking their pets not as a carnivore, but as a herbivore. The diet of these dogs includes food that is not matching the needs of a dog's body. Instead of meat she is fed with rich in carbohydrates and cooked food. Hunger and the need for a growing body makes the dog to constantly ??search for more food or for the other kind of food.

To protect your dog from the wrong deeds, it is important to teach her a few rules of a "food behavior".
Rule number one. It is important that your dog will eat only from her bowl or your hands. Do not let any other kind of feeding. Wherever you are, it is desirable to serve the dog food only in containers. Such behavior will fulfill your dog is thinking only of the bowl.

Rule number two. Command. This means that from the very young age, you accustom your dog to start eating only with your permission. Specifically you are producing the sense of self-control in your dog. For example, when feeding a puppy, stop him in front of a full bowl for 15-30 seconds and only then give the command to eat. As they grow older, increase endurance, bringing up a habit for your dog to start eating only on your command.

Rule number three. Avoid eating of food that has fallen. When feeding the dog, show by your behavior that what falls outside of the bowl, or is not in your hand, can not be eaten. You do not need to beat a puppy or yell at him, just hold him and then offer another piece from your hand. Leave a fallen piece to lie on the floor until your dog finishes the food in the bowl and then just put it to the garbage - in any case never feed your puppy with the fallen piece.

For your dog to know the rules it will be helpful to provide her with a special classes. ??Start to educate your puppy from 2-3 months of age. When feeding, you can specially on purpose drop a piece of food while watching the reaction of a puppy. If he goes after the fallen piece - pull him away immediately and feed from your hand. As your puppy will grow older, teach him not to react to the fallen pieces of food. Teach your dog to sit longer beside the full bowl, while feeding her from the hand with some nice treats.
If you are walking and driving a dog on a leash, try to throw around some pieces of food. This technique will let you to know how the dog has learned the rules. Once the animal is stretched out to your hand, but not to the fallen piece, you can praise yourself!

Rule number four. Do not let your dog to eat from the other people's hands. Make it as a rule for your dog not to take any food from the hands of strangers in any situation. In this case, the dog should not react to someone else's hand with aggression or fear. As in urban areas some little children may want to feed the dog, and in this case the dog's behavior plays a big role.

To train a dog to perform such behavior is quite real. It is important that your dog had learned that the stranger is never feeding her. Even if he is stretching out his hand with a piece of food, he just will not give it to the dog. ??And here once again it is good to notice that in this case the dog should not be producing any feelings of aggression or cowardice.

The correct response in the dog is achieved through the special training. For such classes you may attract ??friends and relatives. They need to perform the following action: show the dog a tasty treat in the hand, and when she comes closer - clamp the food in a fist. It is desirable that the helpers were as much as possible. ??If people are always the same, the puppy quickly learns his lesson and the result may be negative. When your puppy refused to take the food from someone's hand - immediately prise him yourself.

It is important in such exercises, that feeding behavior is not completely denied. Puppy grows and ??for him it is quite natural to look for more food. If there is none available, the dog will start to look for the food "on the side".

Rule number five. Perform all of the rules described above. There should be no exceptions. All these rules are clear of "not getting food" from another source. That is how the dog will start to understand: there is no reason to go for something, that will not be given anyway. ??Danger in this situation may come as a "accidental" eating of food that is not from your hand. It is desirable to eliminate such behavior, or all of your classes will be done for nothing. And the process of your dog's education will become much more difficult.

Remember, negligence in raising a dog is not allowed. If you're a bad teacher, you provide a negative effect on the dog's behavior. She will not learn anything good, but - in the opposite - strengthen in her misunderstandings. Unfortunately, in this case only ??the "painful" signal will help - indicating the food ??outside of the bowl or the palm of your hand ??as a threat.

Perhaps the food reflex is the strongest one in dogs and the most difficult to fight. Therefore, there are many ways to organize a proper nutrition. As mentioned above, it is exactly the unhealthy diet that leads your dog to the wrong actions. The dog will start to act as a "food getter".

Very positive effect comes with the "second rule" - to eat only on the command of the owner. The following rules determine the eating places - only from a bowl or hand of the owner. To break the habit of picking ??the street food, a dog can wear a muzzle or you can give the command to carry something (if your dog is taught to retrieve already).

Positive action may be developed with an incompatible behavior. During the walk you teach a dog to bring you the different items in exchange for the treats. You may also cover the "forbidden" pieces of food with pepper or something else spicy, that will not harm your dog's health, but give him a bad feeling for this kind of food.

All you have to do basically - to choose the right for you and your dog method of education and stick to it. Take your four-legged friend seriously and responsively, and you will never have to be ashamed of his behavior or to worry about his health.