20 Aug

How Does Your Shih Tzu Training Measure Up?

A great way to check your Shih Tzu training ability is to look back at your own habits when interacting with your dog.

Shih Tzu TrainingSimilarly you can see whether you are training your Shih Tzu in a way that he understands or creating a big jumble of confusion.

So many people believe that dog training is about reigning in a dog with a very specific personality type. Most blame the dog for his own behavior whilst others even rehome the dog because they think they have a ‘bad’ dog in their midst.

The only thing that is true about the statements above is that the dog has a personality. This is a welcome finding with dog behaviorists because most people that love dogs have known this for years, we were just waiting for science to catch up.

When we talk about your dog’s behavior though the real truth is that most of the time you are carrying out Shih Tzu training without even knowing it!

So let’s take a look at how your own Shih Tzu training measures up to your dog’s level of understanding.

Rewarding Creates Repetition

Do you reward anything that you would like your dog to keep doing? This is a fundamental part of Shih Tzu learning. It’s ingrained deep down in your little dog’s mind to repeat anything at all that you reward. This is based on an innate instinct to survive and cannot be changed.

So ask yourself how often your dog does something amazing and you don’t even acknowledge it. To ignore a really good behavior is to pass up a wonderful opportunity to reinforce that behavior and make it stronger.

Attention Creates Repetition

This is true for exactly the same reason as above. Your Shih Tzu will repeat anything that he gets attention for, because to him the attention is a reward. The attention need not even be positive. Simply telling your dog to stop doing something is attention.

So ask yourself how often you give your dog attention when he is doing something that you wish he wouldn’t? If you do it a lot then your Shih Tzu training is way off track.

Ignoring Creates Lack

Similarly if you ignore your dog when he is doing something and he is not rewarded by the environment in any way, then the Shih Tzu will soon stop bothering with the behavior. It’s inconsequential to him and the little dog will wander away to find something that he can do that has more consequence.

At this point you can get your Shih Tzu training into action by adding a reward for much nicer behavior.

Take a moment now to ask yourself whether you truly ignore your Shih Tzu when he is doing something horrible? If you don’t then you are literally training him to do that horrible thing again and again.

The above examples all work. When you get your mind set on them and start to cater your interactions with your dog to these facts, your Shih Tzu training will thrive. Why not let us know how your own Shih Tzu training measures up by getting in touch?

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