For many years now, dog owners have tried to perfect the way that they train a dog. There is obedience school, where they are taught by a "trained professional" and the dog receives a cute little diploma upon completion. There are numerous books and magazines on training dogs and now there is even a TV show called "The Dog Whisperer".
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Do these work, sure they do. But I have trained my dog without using any of the above mentioned methods. It's not much different than training children. Persistence and Consistence is the key, along with patience. You cannot start something and not follow through with it. You cannot reward for bad behavior, however, you cannot only focus on the negatives either. Your need to lead by example, believe it or not. If you show your dog that you are not happy, they will pick up on that. Your dog only wants to please you. That's what makes dogs so great. They love you unconditionally and they don't answer you back. No matter what, they are always in a good mood when they see you.
The trick is to get them to keep that good mood when strangers enter the picture. My dog used to act like a complete fool when someone rang my door bell. He would not only greet them with barking, but he would run out the door and make a spectacle of himself until the person left. I know he is only protecting his territory, but quite frankly, I really only wanted him as a friendly pet. I personally feel that unless there are extreme circumstances, you should never put your dog away into a closed room when guests come to your home. Unless someone is extremely afraid of your dog, this is the worst thing for a dog. It's really not fair, this is the dog's home too, not your guests. Again, by persistence and consistency this dog will learn that guests to visit and must get used to that idea.
As far as potty training your dog. That also has to be established with persistence, consistency and of course your patience. You must teach your dog where he can "do his business" and keep it that way. My dog knows his "spot" and that is where he has gone for almost 10 years. Of course, when he was a puppy, he had accidents. This goes back to the comparison of training children, all children have accidents when potty training, it happens. You can't focus on the one time that there was an accident and not the ten or twenty times that there wasn't. You'll drive yourself and your dog crazy.
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