How Can A Dog Feel My Thoughts During Training?
There is a saying with horses that horses can feel everything you are feeling.
People believe that when you ride everything you feel is communicated to the horse through the reins.
If you are nervous the horse can feel it in his mouth.
If you are confident, the horse can feel it from your fingers right through the reins to his sensitive mouth.
Something very similar happens when you have a dog on a leash.
Your emotions and feelings, whether positive or negative, are communicated right down the leash to your dog.
If you take up your dog's leash and you are convinced that he won't listen to you, chances are that he will act just as you think he will.
He won't listen to you.
If, however, you pick up his leash and you believe that he will do what you want, he is much more likely to have confidence in you and do what you want.
This helps explain why your dog ignores you but when the dog trainer comes to your house and picks up your dog's leash the dog immediately does what the trainer wants.
The dog trainer has all the confidence in the world.
He knows that he can get the dog to do what he wants.
And the dog can feel that confidence, too.
The dog trainer has more than the knowledge to train your dog.
He has the confidence.
Dog show people believe in this concept so much that when they are nervous before showing a dog they will pop a breath mint or a peppermint in their mouth on the theory that the mint odor helps to hide nervousness from the dog.
They're afraid that their own fear and nervousness will "travel down the lead" and make the dog nervous while showing.
Of course, the best way to overcome this nervousness or the fear that can go up and down the lead is through practice.
Whether you are going in the show ring or trying to train obedience skills practice will help you overcome your fears.
When you overcome your own fears you help your dog become more confident, too.
Some fears are natural, but if you spend enough time working with dogs you can learn to predict how they behave and become confident about your own abilities to handle certain actions and situations.
You will learn to control your fears and negative thoughts.
You'll learn to stay positive when working with your dog.
By expecting a good outcome you help one to occur.
You can also tell how a dog is feeling, sometimes through the lead, but often through body language.
You can learn to predict behavior, anticipate it and be ready to deal with it if it should happen.
If you're training a dog to go over jumps on an agility course and he begins to show some little signs that he may run out you can learn to predict what may happen and be prepared to take action.
If you're working on obedience and he is showing signs that he's thinking about coming out of a long down you can see the signs and know to work on them during training.
Watching your dog's body language will help you to prevent many things before they happen, especially during training.
When a dog is nervous it is usually obvious to his owner.
The better you know your dog the easier it will be for you to see if your dog is nervous or upset about something.
Likewise, the better your dog knows you the harder it will be for you to hide your feelings from him.
There's a bond between you with or without a leash.
Try to keep things positive and you'll both feel better.
Work on building confidence, both in yourself and with your dog, and training will be much easier.
People believe that when you ride everything you feel is communicated to the horse through the reins.
If you are nervous the horse can feel it in his mouth.
If you are confident, the horse can feel it from your fingers right through the reins to his sensitive mouth.
Something very similar happens when you have a dog on a leash.
Your emotions and feelings, whether positive or negative, are communicated right down the leash to your dog.
If you take up your dog's leash and you are convinced that he won't listen to you, chances are that he will act just as you think he will.
He won't listen to you.
If, however, you pick up his leash and you believe that he will do what you want, he is much more likely to have confidence in you and do what you want.
This helps explain why your dog ignores you but when the dog trainer comes to your house and picks up your dog's leash the dog immediately does what the trainer wants.
The dog trainer has all the confidence in the world.
He knows that he can get the dog to do what he wants.
And the dog can feel that confidence, too.
The dog trainer has more than the knowledge to train your dog.
He has the confidence.
Dog show people believe in this concept so much that when they are nervous before showing a dog they will pop a breath mint or a peppermint in their mouth on the theory that the mint odor helps to hide nervousness from the dog.
They're afraid that their own fear and nervousness will "travel down the lead" and make the dog nervous while showing.
Of course, the best way to overcome this nervousness or the fear that can go up and down the lead is through practice.
Whether you are going in the show ring or trying to train obedience skills practice will help you overcome your fears.
When you overcome your own fears you help your dog become more confident, too.
Some fears are natural, but if you spend enough time working with dogs you can learn to predict how they behave and become confident about your own abilities to handle certain actions and situations.
You will learn to control your fears and negative thoughts.
You'll learn to stay positive when working with your dog.
By expecting a good outcome you help one to occur.
You can also tell how a dog is feeling, sometimes through the lead, but often through body language.
You can learn to predict behavior, anticipate it and be ready to deal with it if it should happen.
If you're training a dog to go over jumps on an agility course and he begins to show some little signs that he may run out you can learn to predict what may happen and be prepared to take action.
If you're working on obedience and he is showing signs that he's thinking about coming out of a long down you can see the signs and know to work on them during training.
Watching your dog's body language will help you to prevent many things before they happen, especially during training.
When a dog is nervous it is usually obvious to his owner.
The better you know your dog the easier it will be for you to see if your dog is nervous or upset about something.
Likewise, the better your dog knows you the harder it will be for you to hide your feelings from him.
There's a bond between you with or without a leash.
Try to keep things positive and you'll both feel better.
Work on building confidence, both in yourself and with your dog, and training will be much easier.
