7 Amazing Unknown Facts About Dogs
Puppies learn best through play—it increases their emotional and neurological development, improves social skills, and helps them develop impulse control!
If you only train your dog while he’s in a calm mood he won’t know how to obey you when he’s excited (like when he sees a squirrel or a skateboarder)!
A puppy’s brain is designed to learn primarily by being continuously distracted, and by exploring his environment with his teeth. So while puppy play groups are a healthy way for a puppy to learn and develop into a fully functioning adult, puppy obedience classes can actually cause learning deficits and, in some cases, long-term social and emotional problems!
Your dog has strong instinctive needs and drives that will always find a way to override either dominance (fear-based) or positive (treat-based) training. So methods that actually use your dog’s drives in training work far better than those that don’t.
Most obedience behaviors—like the heel, the stay, the down, etc.—are similarities of the predatory motor patterns found in wild wolves! So these behaviors don’t really need to be taught, per se, you just need to re-awaken your dog to the behavioral template already stamped into his DNA. When you do he will be much more open to learning, and he’ll be much more motivated to obey you under any and all circumstances.
There are no pack leaders in wild wolf packs—real pack operates as a cooperative hunting unit. They love working together!
Part of your dog’s genetic heritage is the need to hunt as part of a group the way wolves do. This style of hunting requires intense cooperation, so the desire to cooperate is hard-wired into your dog as part of her group hunting instincts. The key to unlocking that desire is found in play!
Article by Lee Charles Kelly, NDT in New York
This article was reposted by New York Dog Nanny.
