Is your dog's behaviour a source of pride, or embarrassment? Like it or not, how your dog behaves reflects on you as a dog owner and as a person. So getting the proper dog behaviour training for your pet is important. Many dog owners have a lot of experience in training dogs, others have none, but everyone can benefit from learning more.

The first thing you need to understand has nothing to do with dog behaviour training. If your dog exhibits bad behaviour, from simply jumping up, to destroying your belongings, you must discover the reasons for the behaviour before training your dog. If you try to train your dog before knowing why they behave in certain ways, not only might you not correct the problem, you might make your dog's behaviour worse and/or make training him more difficult.

But, how do you know what causes your dog's behaviour? Unless you are a professional dog trainer, it's sometimes difficult to say, but you can start by looking at a dog's basic motivations. Dogs are pack animals and, as such, many of their motivations are based on their relationship to and standing within the pack. The leader of any dog pack is the alpha dog. Other dogs in the pack are in a certain hierarchy, but all are subservient to the leader ? they all want to please the leader of the pack and avoid the leader's wrath, which is how the alpha dog does his own ?behaviour training?.

Your dog views you and your family as his ?pack?. One of the most basic reasons for behaviour problems in dogs is their lack of understanding of who is the leader of their pack. This can happen when there is a lack of behaviour training, part of the reason for which is to establish the trainer as the leader. It is natural instinct forall dogs to try to assume the role of leader if they feel there is none for their pack. What it means in terms of your dog's behaviour is, if it is not clear in her mind that you are the leader of the pack, she will start to exhibit behaviour that is designed to establish her as the leader. That might mean more aggressive behaviour, like barking or, in worse cases, biting. Many people might think that barking and biting are signs of a dog with an aggressive personality, when really it's only a dog trying to set things straight in its pack.

The lack of a clear leader in your dog's mind is a complicated training problem because there is the extra task of reversing yours and your dog's positions in the pack before any behaviour training can be properly done.

Unfortunately, establishing yourself as leader of your dog's pack doesn't mean your dog behaviour training problems are over. Dogs want nothing more than to feel close to and please their leader. In the wild, will attempt to get physically closer, in a subservient way and will often only approach the leader with tails between their legs. Since you are the leader, your dog wants nothing more than to please you and get closer to you. Again, this can be the reason for behaviour that might otherwise look like bad behaviour. For example, if you have been out all day and you come home to find your favourite pair of slippers chewed to shreds, it didn't happen because your dog is badly behaved or because they she wanted to cause you stress, but she probably only missed you and found solace in something that has your scent on it.

So, your dog's ?bad? behaviour isn't really bad, it's just her way of making things right in her world. But, that doesn't make the behaviour acceptable to you and that's why you need to train your dog.

The best part of understanding the reasons for your dog's behaviour before starting your dog's behaviour training is how much better the relationship is between you and your dog following the training. During behaviour training, you reinforce the pack hierarchy and get closer to your dog, two things that are very important to her. Having those two things in place makes it easier for dogs to learn and, in turn, that gives them more confidence to learn even more. Your dog will be happier and you will be too.

The dog behaviour training experts at Alpha Paws would be pleased to help you with any questions you have about your dog's behaviour.