Sydney Dog Training & Behaviour Modification

When the universe prods you with a topic multiple times in a week, it’s time to write about it.
When discussing training and specific behavioural issues, one of the biggest connections that is SO overlooked is that between Obedience (Sit/Stay/Drop/Come) and Good Behaviour /Manners (don’t jump on visitors / the lounge, wait by the door, don’t push in)

There are lots of quick fixes to specific behavioural issues, say for example chewing on shoes or the kids toys. However without a good grounding on the obedience side, the quick fix is more likely to unravel over time and be harder to rectify in the future.
It’s kind of like building a 1st floor bedroom of a house, without the ground floor, you can put it up on stilts, but eventually a strong wind or other event will knock it down – then you have to clean up the mess, as well as rebuild the bedroom. The old “solid foundation” principle.

The other thing to note is that with obedience training some “Manners” issues go away by themselves without specific exercises to fix them. As the dog learns and becomes more comfortable with the leader in the house, some of the undesirable behaviors stop.

Now you might say, that’s ok I don’t mind if the dog starts chewing on the odd shoe again. Well that’s all well and good, however as you tackle some of the more serious issues such as signs of aggression towards other dogs or people, it becomes a lot more imperative that the behaviour is rectified properly.

Which leads into the areas of “Untrained is unknown” and why “under distraction” and the high standard of obedience becomes so important. But I’ll talk about those another time. In the meantime just understand Obedience and Good behaviors’ are inextricably linked.