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There are a lot of techniques said to be effective in achieving every dog owner's dream of a properly-mannered pet. However, not all these are guaranteed to work on your pet since dogs vary from the other, sometimes even if they are of the same breed. As owner, it is therefore your responsibility to determine which particular technique works best on your pet and the ones you better avoid.
1. Socialization is always the starting point.
Before working on complicated or even basic commands, socialize your dog first. Be it a puppy or an adult dog you adopted from the shelter, every dog needs to adjust to the new environment they are brought into. If there are other pets in the house, introduce them on neutral territory and make the encounter pleasant as much as possible to avoid territorial and aggression issues later on.
2. Assess your pet's condition.
Your pet's condition can greatly affect the weimaraner training results. Though naturally energetic breed, you cannot expect an old weimaraner to exhibit the same stamina as a young weimaraner does. Old dogs tire easily while young ones can become rambunctious at times. Knowing your pet's condition can therefore help you determine what training method to use, the length of training per session and the difficulty of each activity.
3. Basic commands to prevent and eliminate behavior issues.
Teaching obedience commands will not only make you a proud dog owner. More importantly, these commands can prevent and eliminate various behavior issues such as chewing, digging, jumping on and/or chasing people and biting. Like for example if you are working on eliminating your pet's jumping issue, commanding him to sit and stay the moment you see him can prevent him from actually jumping. By doing the process when the need arises, he will eventually figure out what is the right thing to do.
4. Basic commands as the groundwork.
You cannot just teach your pet the "roll over" command without teaching the command "down" or "stay". So before you dream of having a dog that can perform amazing tricks, better work on the basic commands first.
5. Motivate through recognition and rewards.
Positive reinforcement always works better than any other training methods. By recognizing your pet's desirable behavior and rewarding him for it, he will be motivated to repeat such behavior when opportunity comes since he knows that he will be getting good things.
6. Penalty is not as necessary as correction.
The best time to correct your pet is when you see him in the act of doing the mistake, like urinating on areas other than you designated as his toilet. When this occurs, take him to the designated area to finish. Penalty should be avoided at all costs for it will only bring more harm than good.
These tips may be very basic but when adhered to, can be very helpful in achieving successful weimaraner training.
