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Teach Your Dog or Puppy Any Trick
or Any Command in 3 Hours or Less – Guaranteed! By Larry Parr INTRODUCTION I want to be clear right up front that I do not
making my living as a dog trainer. I
make my living as a writer, and always have.
But I do own three dogs (as well as four cats) and I have spent countless
hours learning about both animal and human behavior and the bottom line is
that each and every technique that I demonstrate in this book for quickly
(and humanely!) training dogs works – and that’s really the bottom
line. My training methods are Fast and Fun. You’ll hardly know that you are training
your dog at all – until you see the results! Because you can – and WILL – train your dog
to follow virtually any command or to perform almost any trick in 3 hours or
less. I absolutely GUARANTEE it. In most cases you will have them trained in far
less than three hours and the training process will be painless for both you
and your dog. In fact, you will have
your dog following many commands in less than half an hour. When I say “any” trick I obviously mean tricks that
are both common and possible for a dog to perform. You can’t teach your dog to fly by flapping
its paws, nor can you train it to sing opera.
Likewise when I say “any” command I am talking about common and
standard single-word commands. You are
not going to train your dog to follow a command such as “Unlock the closet
door, pick up the bowling ball you’ll find in there, take it out to the car
and drop it in the trunk. That’s a
good dog.” When I first presented the idea of training any dog
to perform any trick or to follow any command in 3 hours or less I was met
with a great deal of skepticism. But
as I continued explaining my ideas the skepticism quickly turned to
interest...the interest turned to intrigue...and finally the intrigue turned
to enthusiasm! Why? Because my
ideas work. And they
are simple to copy. ANYBODY can train their dog to stay...to sit...to
fetch...to roll over...or any other simple trick in much less than 3
hours – GUARANTEED. My methods are extremely simple. Training dogs is not brain
surgery. If I can train any dog
to perform any trick or to follow any command in 3 hours or less, then ANYONE
can do it! When I say “anyone” I really mean ANYONE. I want you to include young children in the
dog training process. When I say
young, I mean as young as three or four years old. One thing that is IMPERATIVE is that your dog KNOWS
– absolutely KNOWS! – that ALL humans in your
household, from the youngest baby in diapers to the oldest member of your
household is higher in the pecking order than your dog. This is an absolute MUST. Your dog wants to know what its
position in the pack (your family) is.
You must make it absolutely clear – with no exceptions – that
your dog ranks last in the pecking order. If your dog knows that it is out-ranked by
EVERY human in your household then it will be HAPPY. That’s right. Your dog will be GLAD that it doesn’t have
the responsibility of running the pack (the family). Also – and this is very important – the lowest dog
in the pack (which is what your dog is in your household) will never bite any
member of the pack that is his or her superior. This is important, because ANY dog can bite
ANYONE at ANY time. But if you have established a hierarchy in your
household with your dog at the bottom, then you have reduced the chances of
your dog biting a member of your family to as close to zero as is humanly
possible. In order to achieve our “miraculous” results in
regards to training we will be using a form of affection training, primarily
relying on positive reinforcements and occasionally, as in training a dog not
to jump up on people, we will withhold positive reinforcements. Often you will be instructed to speak to your dog in
a “firm” voice and to make direct eye contact with your dog, but you should NEVER
yell at your dog to train it – and under no circumstances should you ever
strike your dog to train it. If you
resort to yelling at your dog or hitting your dog then you’ve lost. To yell or to strike is to admit defeat. Never be defeated.
Allow yourself to be challenged
occasionally, but never defeated. NEVER YELL AT YOUR DOG OR STRIKE YOUR DOG. Not only is yelling a sign of human defeat, but the
only things you teach your dog when you yell are to be afraid and to
be confused. Let’s make another thing perfectly clear – and this
is something that a lot of dog owners don’t want to hear. YOUR DOG DOES NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR WORDS. All of us grew up watching DISNEY cartoons in which
animals speak and think like humans. Your dog does NOT think like you do
and your dog does NOT understand human
speech. (I know, I know, your dog is different, your dog is
special and your dog understands every word you say. That’s fine. Just don’t let that belief affect the way
you train your dog). [However, I will relate the following story. The other day I wanted Chika, our
Shepherd/Wolf mix to come in the house.
She laid down in the backyard and turned her
head away. Turning the head away is dog speak
for: “I don’t want to argue with you but I don’t want to do what you are
asking me to do.” Just then the phone rang and I hurriedly said:
“Chika, I have to leave. You either
have to come in the house or go into the dog yard.” And then I went into the house to answer the phone. When I returned to the yard Chika was calmly lying
inside the dog yard, waiting for me to lock the gate. I spoke to her in full and complete sentences and I
used no body language (such as pointing to the dog yard) to tell her what I
wanted of her – and yet she understood. Dogs are amazing creatures and I don’t believe
anyone understands them fully.] For the most part, however, your dog understands
your body language, simple emotions, and your dog can be trained to associate
certain commands and motions with certain actions. That’s what dog training is really all
about. Shouting, rubbing their nose in pee, hitting
them...none of this has any place in dog training. So how in the world can I claim that you can teach
any dog any command or any trick in 3 hours or less? It’s simple, really. To begin with, you will NEVER spend three
hours in a row teaching your dog a trick or a command. That would be far too tiring on your dog as
well as on you. Your dog has a rather short attention span. Your training sessions should seldom last
more than 3 to 6 minutes at a stretch without a break. So if each training session is no more than
6 minutes long, then you and your dog will enjoy a minimum of 30
training sessions, over three to four days, before you have logged 3 hours of
training-time. I strongly recommend that you engage in a maximum
of 10 6-minute training sessions per day, so your training will be spread out
over at least three days, and perhaps even four days. With that much repetition (consistency is
one of the key points in dog training) I can GUARANTEE that your dog will
learn ANY trick or ANY command that you teach in a consistent and
proper manner. Before we start with examples of any training, let’s
begin right now to establish the pecking order in your household – with your
dog at the bottom of the totem pole. Dominance is determined by who controls the
food. If there is even the slightest doubt about who is “top dog” in your household you MUST remove all
doubt immediately. Start by placing your dog’s food bowl on the floor,
but only if your dog will settle down first. If your dog jumps for its food the person
with the bowl is to turn his or her back on the dog and stand perfectly
still, saying nothing, until the dog settles. When the human turns back around with the bowl in
hand the dog must remain calm – and the human must make direct eye contact
with the dog, staring directly into the dog’s eyes and say in a firm
voice “SIT!” – before the bowl is put on the floor. If the dog does not remain calm, but begins jumping
at the food again, the process must be repeated, with the human
turning around and saying nothing to the dog.
Once the dog calms down, which can take several minutes, especially
with young or severely out-of-control dogs, then and only then should the
human turn back and face the dog, staring directly and unblinkingly into the
dog’s eyes. Vary the person who places the dog’s bowl on the
floor. Allow even the youngest child
to do this routine, even if an adult must physically keep the dog from
knocking the child down – and make certain the child stares directly into the
dog’s eyes and says the word “SIT!” before placing the bowl on the floor. After this routine is followed for three or four
days the dog should show definite signs of submissiveness. If, at any time in the future your dog
becomes aggressive at mealtime, this same procedure needs to be repeated;
this should not happen often as you have now clearly established a hierarchy
within the pack (family), with your dog firmly in his or her place at the
bottom. Obviously within this book I cannot give examples of
how to train a dog to perform every single trick or how to train a dog to
obey every command that anyone could possibly think of, but I am going to
present several examples and it should be possible to modify at least one
example to fit whatever specific training needs you might have. One more thing before we start. It is an excellent practice to end each training
session by allowing your dog some free time to play and by showing your dog
affection. This serves two very
important functions. First, it helps to relieve the stress that sometimes
settles over a training session even when we attempt to make each session as
stress-free as possible, but even more importantly it establishes in the
dog’s mind a positive association with the training sessions, and this is
important. Training should not be a huge chore, either for you
or for your dog. Try to end most training
sessions before your dog becomes excessively bored or terribly
frustrated. Remember, it is generally
better to have many short training sessions than one long session that ends
up teaching your dog to hate the training sessions rather than learning the
lesson you’re trying to teach. |