Puppies, as well as humans, have to be educated and taught a series of rules to be able to coexist in the place where they are. If we do not learn to educatea puppy he will soon grow up and will not respect any of the things in the home. Discipline is the only way to get puppies to behave appropriately.
There are several methods for exercising discipline. The important thing is not to base the education on aggressive punishments, because if we treat our puppies with mistreatment, when they grow up they will take these same behaviors.
Puppy training methods should be based on the establishment of and compliance with certain rules. For example, if we tell our puppy not to scratch the door or bite the furniture, we cannot allow exceptions, because the contradiction between what is said and done can make the dog lose respect for his master.
Likewise, if there are several people at home, it is not possible to contradict what the dog’s owner states. For example, we cannot let the dog get into mischief when the owner is not around. Some methods that may be useful for puppy training are as follows:
Stimulus and response
During the 20th century several psychologists have put forward a theory of learning, which has worked for both humans and animals, this is the stimulus-response theory, which works as follows: if we want our dog to perform an activity we must link the phrase and the behavior to a positive reward. For example, if we want the puppy to learn to sit, we must repeat the phrase “Sit”, pointing to the action. Once he performs the behavior we must give him a reward with a food that he likes. We must repeat this activity until the dog associates the behavior with the phrase and the reward.
Reinforcement in puppy training
Another theory that works quite well for animal learning is to constantly reinforce the behavior we have managed to get them to learn. As with humans, if a behavior is not reinforced, it is forgotten. This means that it is not enough for the dog to learn the behavior, but also to practice it constantly. For example, if we have managed to get our pet to relieve itself in a specific area of the house, we should not change this place, as it will probably lose the learning we have given it.
Patience and Perseverance
Educating a dog is not an easy task but it is important that we persist in the rules that we send him what we raise him.
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