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Old January 18th, 2011, 02:34 PM
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Jenn~n~Luke Jenn~n~Luke is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Saint John New Brunswick
Posts: 45
For this, a long with a few other commands, like sit, I have always done the same thing. Before I ever brought the word "come" into the picture, I constantly reinforced the pup/dog who came to me by themselves. If you're standing on the other side of the room and your dog walks over to you...PRAISE. I like to reward them for deciding to do behaviors on their own, instead of asking them to do something and expectign them to understand what I Want from them at first. Once they know that by coming to you, whether it be across the room or anywhere, you can then start using the command "Come" and HUGE praise/treat for that. I find with some dogs, especially more independant thinkers, it helps in the sense that they THINK they are choosing the behavior themselves and being rewarded for it, rather than being told what to do. Either way, the end result is the same. You want your dog to associate coming to you at any time as a positive thing. "Great things happen to me when I go to Mom" sort of thing. NEVER ever call your dog to you to scold him. If you have to stop a behavior like chewing, etc...GO TO HIM. Once a dog has been called to you and scolded it loses the positive association and gives them a good reason not to want to come to you. Makes sense right? Like I said, I use the same thinking for training things like sit and down. They're automatic, natural behaviors that all dogs do. Rather than try to lure them into it and reinforce, I reinforce EVERY time they do it naturally. Makes asking them for behaviors much easier in my opinion.
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