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Your willingness to learn how to train a dog speaks volumes as to how much you care about your pet and its well-being as a member of your household and the community. Performing training yourself is a lot of hard work and can be quite tricky but if you understand the basics of dog behavior, you can just as soon reap the benefits of your time and efforts invested in training your dog. With a well-behaved dog, you can say goodbye to noisy barking at night, destructive habits like scratching, jumping, chewing, and biting, undisciplined elimination, and worries that your dog might do harm to other people.

The Basics of Dog Behavior
Different dog breeds are more susceptible to specific types of training . For instance, a Doberman is easily trained as a guard dog as collies are predisposed to be a herding dog because of its ancestry. Some dogs like retrievers and setters are good at hunting. If you are interested in learning the ropes of how to train a dog, you must have a good idea of how its mind goes.

Dogs are descended from wolves. While they have become domesticated enough to earn a place within our homes, it is not a surprise that physical characteristics and wolfish instincts are retained. As our fuzzy pets have sharp eyes and a keen sense of smell, dogs still harbor an innate need to be part of a pack.

This does not necessarily mean that you should fear your pet running away to join a neighborhood gang of howling dogs; it is their need for a leader to follow. You can use this characteristic to your advantage by establishing yourself as your dog's fair and firm-handed leader. It instills a sense of security in them to have someone to follow around. If a dog does not see your leadership qualities, it will not hesitate to take on the position as leader of the pack.

For your dog to obey you , you need to be ready to take on the role of the alpha dog. Do not ever let those big, begging puppy eyes to destroy your resolve not to let him sleep on your bed at night. Occasionally show it who the boss is by asking it to leave his place in the couch so you can site or not feeding him until you are done eating. It may be hard to do but keeping him in his place is the key on how to train a dog successfully.

While it is most ideal to start training a dog while it is still a puppy, older dogs you adopt from animal shelters can still be taught new tricks, contrary to popular belief. For beginners, learning how to train a dog can get a bit frustrating. Bear in mind that your dog cannot learn all the tricks in the book overnight. Avoid yelling at or hitting it. Not only does it make your dog scared and mistrustful, it is also illegal.

Reward and praise your dog every time it successfully follows your order. Apply reinforcement through repetition and consistency of your commands. Promote awareness about your dog's training in the household to avoid confusion. And most importantly, never give up.