How To Behave So Your Dog Behaves

Hi, my name is Stan Rawlinson. I'm an obedience trainer and I'm a dog behaviourist. With me today is Charlie, a rescue dog I've had for quite a few years now, went through a terrible start in his life.

I'm going to explain how to behave as an owner so your dog behaves. Let me explain something. Dogs are incredible mimics, they tend to mimic our actions.

Put a little Jack Russell, Charlie is a Jack Russell cross Dachshund, he is a Stretch Limo Jack Russell. But put a little jumpy young Jack Russell in with a little old lady, with a Zimmer frame, and within six months, that Jack Russell would be creeping around at the same pace as her. It'll be all laidback and quiet and not jumping all over the place.

Put the same Jack Russell in a family, with 2 or 3 hyperactive kids and the dog will be climbing the walls in no time. So how we behave around our dogs is vitally important to what we get back out of our dogs. Now, that means, if you are not consistent, if you're inconsistent, then your dog will be inconsistent, it's as simple as that.

So what you have to do: lay the rules down. But not forceful, not check chains, not beating your dog up or shouting at it. No, quietly.

The more quietly you talk to the dog, the more it will listen to you. Because it has to. If you yell at it all the time, you got nowhere to go if you want it to stop doing something.

So to curb on wanted behaviour, the key, the 3 keys are the same as property. Location, location, location. With dog training: consistency, consistency, consistency.

So if your family is going to get your dog to behave, you've all got to be singing from the same hymn book. It's vitally important that you do this. So start as you mean to go on.

Decide what you're prepared to accept. Do not try and over-excite and then tell it off for being over-excited. Don't start playing rough-tough games and when he starts biting, you start shouting and yelling and screaming at it.

Because you created that behaviour by your behaviour. Therefore, be careful. Whatever dog you've got, will react the way you're reacting.

They are mimics after all. So calm, careful and considered. Just think of the 3 C's.

To be able to work with your dog, you need to give it the way forward, from where you and your family are accepting to be. Hope you're enjoying your dogs. Stan Rawlinson, dog behaviourist.