Teaching Patience

I'm not a professional dog trainer nor have I ever taken any courses on dog behavior. I just want to make that clear in case you were wondering what my background is. I learn through trial and error like most of you.

How do I teach patience? Took me awhile to figure out that one out as dogs do not know what you are saying. They might understand word association and gestures, but to formulate ideas based off a complex language, forget it. Well, not my dog anyways.

I'll take a simple example of everyday life with my best friend. A dog will show anxiousness when he wants something. Some dogs cry, some bark, others will scratch and bite at the door until the get what they want.

I took a simple daily chore like walking out of the house to take him on a stroll as a way to teach patience. My dog loves walks. He loves it so much that once I pick up his leash he's jumping up and down for joy. When this happens, I don't put the leash on him. That is encouraging a behavior that is unwarranted. I sit down and wait for him to calm down, and then tell him to turn around and sit. Eventually, he knows what that means and will respond accordingly. From there we walk to the front door. I will not open the door until he perform the desired action that I taught him earlier. He needs to sit and wait for me to open the door. When we walk out of the door, again he has to sit and wait for me to close the door. If he responds correctly, we then go far a walk. At anytime during the process if he pauses and forgets the sequence, I give him a few seconds. If that doesn't work I tell him to sit and tug on the leash. 9 out of 10 times it works perfectly.

He has to learn, that if he wants or desires something, he has to settle down, and observe my way of submission and calmness. He then learns to behave and he gets rewarded when he does so. I don't reward him because he's cute. My rewards are pleasures in life, like walking, and playing catch.

I hope this helps some of you.

 

I have no idea on how to train dogs. We hired a professional trainer when our puppies were months old but the 3 months of training seemed not to have an effect on our puppies. The first puppy is Pipoy, a hyperactive pug while Barbie is a ferocious pekingese who would bark and growl upon the sight of strangers. Maybe that's a good post you made about teaching the dog to be patient but I don't think that would be effective on our dogs. My husband always tell me that our dogs are spoiled because I spoiled them, huh.

 

I posit that using the model advanced by the Russian scientist Ivan (is it?) Pavlov would work well. This involves positive feedback where you perform a certain action at a certain time to prompt the dog to expect or come for something especially food. It can be as simple as ringing a bell at certain times of the day to alert the dog that its time to eat. This way, the dog will develop patience while in the process of waiting for a signal that heralds relief.