Dog training and behavior can go hand-in-hand. A lack of one can contribute to the other's unhealthy behaviors. Learning this partnership can help to address many of the problems arising from it.

Most dog habits are a direct product of certain kinds of training. To be clear, dog training is all our dog knows through contact with us. Most people think wrongly that dog training is purely obedience training or other sports. Dogs do not realize the difference between the strength of dogs and the Belgian ring. They're both learned and normal habits, so there's no distinction in our homes between dog sports and dog behaviors, and they're not natural to our dog.

How Do I Train My Dog?

There are simply two ways:

- Consciously: If we have some purpose, how the dog should carry out a particular task.

- Unconsciously: When we do not respond to actions of dogs and allow them to develop or to promote misdeeds.

These are the roots of most problems with dog behavior. You can have two litter cousins living in households next door and living in identical environmental environments, but because of their behavior and training, they will be completely different. Social interaction with family members and people in general will in both cases differently shape behavior patterns.

Things We Do Wrong With Dog Training and Behavior

There are so many wrong doings that all of them cannot be identified. To begin with, I will address a number of more significant ones:

- Awareness (or rather, lack of it), most dog owners are getting their own dog, but they don't even know the basics on dogs

- Most dog owners don't have the expected rule system that is essential to the dog / human relationship.

- And most dog owners prefer to let their dogs get away with the habits they don't want or don't start creating patterns during the time they think they are "too young."

- Inconsistency: That's the biggest error with your dog. For instance, if I were to give a treat to my dog every time he sits down for one to two years, and then suddenly stop recompensing the sitting position; my dog would surely stop offering or doing that, simply because it's no longer rewarding for him. If, however, I were to reward him now and then, I would only strengthen his behavior, because when the reward comes, he would not know (variable strengthening).

The same is true for unwanted behavior, although we disagree with our reaction to the "unwanted behavior" of our dog, the message we are sending is that it is "good" every now and then to continue the behavior, and it is up to our dog to decide when that time comes.

Unwanted Dog Behaviors

Although the Dog behavior issues cover this subject in the website section, it is important to mention it here because these are the "normal" dog behaviors.