How to Break a Dog's Bad Habits Using Simple Canine Pshychology

There are all types of dog training books, videos and other information available about teaching your dog to obey and rid him or her of bad habits. Many are good sources of information, but often lack "real world" examples of situations that may help canine owners work through various issues with their pets.

I have here an example with our own dogs that was quite annoying and how we overcame the problem with nothing but a weeks worth of "training". The dogs involved were 5 year old and 14 year old mixed breeds. They were best friends and were allowed to spend the nights in our living room during the cold winter months.

All was fine for a while, but soon the two were waking up earlier and earlier. These two were bad about getting each other excited; there would end up being a howling fest going on at 5:00 in the mornings as they thought it was time for everyone to get up. Here is how we used some basic dog training techniques to stop that bad habit.

Initially, we'd just let them howl and back in our blocked off living room area. After a while, they would stop. But not until we were awake and quite angry feeling with them; going back to sleep after this was problematic.

So instead of just ignoring them, which was not working, we decided on a new course of action. We decided that since it was not their need to go outside that early (they just wanted us to get up with them), we would force them to go outside. For a week, we would immediately get up and put them out when we first heard them up and about. It was very cold, so we did not leave them outside too long, but we did leave them out long enough to get our message across. The message was that when they started their annoying behavior, they were going to be put out right away and for longer than they really wanted.

Soon, it was more and more difficult to get them to go outside. Then we began simply putting a leash on them to lead them out the door. They really did not like this new approach we were taking. We noticed that their annoying times were starting later and later in the mornings. Our dog training was working! We were stopping a very annoying behavior with this simply strategy.

Within a month, the problem was completely gone! The two dogs did not get up until we got up. Even on the weekends, when we often stay in bed until 7:00, they would remain sleeping then living room without waking us with their behavior.

The moral of this dog training story is how well dogs respond to negative reinforcement. When dogs have an unwanted behavior, simply find what you can associate with that action that will be a negative for the dog. It really is the easiest way to break a dog from behaving badly.

For more information about dog health and other training issues, visit Steve's site at Cactus Canyon for more tutorials and canine related articles. Steve Weber is an avid dog lover and has much experience in
canine health related issues. Also available is information on how pet owners can safely clean their dog's teeth safely and inexpensively with all natural products.