Dog Training - Starting With The Owner Then The Dog

By Author: Sarah McDermott
Total Articles: 142
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Since you are reading this article I will assume that you have pets and have some sort of problem. There are many problems that you may encounter with your pet that you may find hard to deal with and that you might not know why or where they came from.

For example, I have encountered many owners with pets that didn't know what to do. One such owner has a pet that has a phobia of cars. This phobia was so terrible that every time he would hear or see a car he would begin frantically spinning and running after them. That is something scary when you are alone with your pet and you can't seem to get a handle on this problem.

In a basic sense your pet reacts just the same as you react but with different physical responses. He senses how and what you feel and those anxieties manifest themselves in different ways based on the different personalities of people's pets. Sometimes this is hard to understand but I find it to be 100% true. For example, I have a personal friend that asked me to try and help one of her friends deal with her pet that will start to bark insanely at anyone that even thinks about setting foot in her ...
... home. His barking isn't a bark that came from a dog trying to protect his master or his home. This was the bark of a scared dog that fed of the insecurities of his owner. The best thing about training animals is the fact that very little of it involves training the dog and most of it involves training the owners.

Dogs feed off of every emotion that you could possibly feel. You might not realize this but they can feel everything you feel and it affects them. This woman, let's call her Susan, was insecure about letting people into her home and that only fed and nurtured her pets insecure behavior. By showing her that she needed to be firm yet gentle with her pet, Susan began to change her behavior. She became more secure with herself and more secure with her pet. That in itself showed with his behavior. When he becomes unstable, she checks him and snaps him into reality. That keeps him in check and shows him that she is the leader and he needs to follow and obey her commands.

Just by training and showing a person how to act cool and collected with their pet, you are able to retrain a pet that has otherwise become unstable. It matters more that you put out a calm and positive energy and that will go a long way to show your pet that you are the leader of his pack.