Teaching Your Dog Good Manners

A dog that throws his head enthusiastically into his meal bowl with gusto can be a nasty experience. Especially troublesome if the dog does not wait for the bowl to get to the ground. Teaching your dog to sit and wait for his dinner is an excellent exercise. Waiting before tucking into his meal is ideal everyday chance to implant manners and general control into your dog’s behavior.

The most effective way to teach this is to reward for good behavior and restraint, this can buttress it. Your dog’s dinner is his final target so may be employed as his motivation and reward in this example. All your dog must learn is if he sits and waits he gets his reward, but if he jumps and grabs, the reward gets further away.

Prepare his meal as normal then ask your dog to sit and wait. It's going to be useful if he knows these commands before you try this, however the exercise may also be used to buttress the sit and wait command. Research how to train your dog to sit using positive reinforcement for optimum results. Slowly put the bowl of food on the floor about 50cm from your dog whilst he dog sits and watches you.

If your dog jumps up or makes an attempt to take the food prior to asking him to then simply pick up the bowl again. When the bowl is out of reach ask your dog to sit and wait a second time then repeat the motion of putting the bowl on the floor. Depending on your dog this could need to be repeated countless times before he realizes that he only gets the food if he waits.

By noiselessly and patiently showing your dog that each time he breaks the sit and wait command his dinner goes away you will teach him to be well mannered at dinner times. You will also be ready to lengthen the time that he is going to wait, looking at the bowl on the floor, before being told that he can take his meal.

For more information on how to train your dog to sit and the wonderful results available from positive dog training, come visit The Dog Trick Academy community web site.