If you are a pet owner who has a poorly behaved dog, read this blog. In this article we offer top tips on how to manage a misbehaving dog and now to correct that behaviour.

Top tips on how to manage a misbehaving dog

No matter the breed of your dog or what kind of temperament they generally have, there is no doubt that they have the ability to be naughty from time to time. Every dog has this within them. As the dog owner you need to be prepared for this. The truth is that there are many approaches you can take here. Every dog is different. What is more each dog owner will have a different way of managing a misbehaving dog. Nonetheless, if you want to learn how to deal with bad behaviour there are a lot of things to bear in mind.

In this article, we will take you through everything you need to know about how to deal with a misbehaving dog. As long as you think about the following, you should find it easier than you might have feared. And hopefully you can improve your dog’s behaviour. Let’s take a look at what’s involved.

Dog training is key

You can think of training as a preventative measure to help ensure that your dog doesn’t actually misbehave in the first place. As such, this is definitely something that you are going to want to make sure you are paying attention to if you want your dog to behave a lot better. Training really is key to all of this, so it’s worth looking into and making sure you don’t overlook it at all.

Teach yourself first

The best way to train a dog is to teach yourself how to do it, even before you first bring them home. You don’t need to hire an expert to train your dog for you, you just need to find the right resources and absorb them as fully as possible so you can learn what you are meant to be doing. If you take a look at https://www.puppytrainedright.com/site/home you will see some examples of the kinds of resources that you might need to use.

With patience and practice, you will soon know what you are meant to do in order to keep your puppy or dog well-behaved, and then you’ll find that they are much less likely to be a nuisance or to cause trouble. As we said, you can think of training as preventative, so this is arguably the single best thing you can do to help keep your dog under control.

Ensure they get plenty of exercise

Exercise is obviously really important for your dog’s health, so it’s something that you should be making sure you are paying close attention to at all times. But it also plays a role in keeping your dog from being too naughty, for the simple reason that exercising tends to release a lot of energy, which therefore means that your dog is less likely to expend energy doing things to show up, the kinds of activities you would much rather they didn’t do.

All that is to say that you should therefore make sure that you are giving them plenty of exercise each and every day, from as soon as you have your puppy at home. Dogs of all ages need exercise, albeit it at differing amounts, so you should make sure that you are keeping on top of this as best as you can. It’s also important to consider your dog’s breed, as different breeds need to exercise different amounts too. All in all, however, it’s just important that you are taking them to exercise every single day.

Regular walks help

As well as taking your dog for regular walks, you should consider allowing them to expend their energy at home. If you have a garden, that is obviously the easiest way to do that, but there are many approaches you can take to all this. The point is that when you give them enough exercise, they are going to be much less naughty on the whole.

Puppy-proof your home

Just as when you bring a child home for the first time, when you bring a puppy home, you need to make sure that your home is puppy-proof. In other words, you have to try and keep it as safe as possible, and consider all of the kinds of damage that they might inflict on the home, so you can figure out how to keep everything safe from them. This will ensure that they are not able to learn those naughty behaviors in the first place, which will obviously act as a really important preventative measure too.

So what do you need to do in order to puppy-proof your house? Mostly, it’s about making sure that anything they might chew and destroy is out of their reach. That means tidying away shoes and toys, being careful with what houseplants you have out on display, and taking care with ornaments and the like too. You’ll also find that you need to supervise your puppy, at least at first, so that they are not going to start learning those bad behaviors that can easily take place.

If you have done this, your puppy is going to be much less likely to grow up into a naughty dog, so it’s a really good way to make sure that this doesn’t happen, and it’s something you might as well pay attention to as best as you can from the very start. You’ll be glad that you did.

Reward good behavior

Keeping your dog from being naughty is not just about ensuring they don’t engage in bad behaviors. It’s also equally important to make sure that you are rewarding good behavior. In fact, some people believe that this is a much more effective strategy altogether. It will certainly help in encouraging them to behave in a way that you would prefer, which is obviously the main thing that we are hoping for in all this. So, setting up a decent reward system for their good behavior is definitely something that you should think about doing right away.

Be consistent with the lessons

The way to make this effective is to ensure that it is consistent. Your dog will need some repeat occurrences of the good behavior and the subsequent reward in order to learn that this is what they should do. Some dogs might need more encouragement than others, but as long as you stick with it and you are consistent, you’ll find that this is going to be effective in the end.

Then there’s the matter of which rewards to use. A very simple and easy tool to use is offering treats.  This will always go down well. Doubtless your dog will definitely be keen to comply to earn more treatas. This makes it a very good and effective reward for good behaviour. Of course, you will soon work out whether your dog has a preferred flavor or treat. So focus on that as the ideal reward to use.

All in all, persisting with this kind of reward system will result in better behaviour. And you’ll have a happier dog too. So as you progress you are both going to feel that you have won with this new approach.

Common behavioural problems & how to approach them

There are a number of very common problem behaviors that your dog might display, and which you are therefore going to want to make sure that you have a strategy for. As long as you plan what you are doing, your dog’s behaviour should improve. Actually these issues are so common that many people end up developing their own training ideas. So you might do the same. Nonetheless, these are the problems to look out for in particular.

Prevent jumping

First of all, there’s jumping. If your dog tends to jump up at you when you arrive home, the solution is to greet them very calmly and gently let yourself in. But then if you are over-excited yourself, then they are going to be over-excited too. And before you know it they might be going a little too crazy whenever you walk through the door. So try to keep calm.

If your dog is chewing furniture or floorboards, simply keep valuables out of their reach. This is a normal teething issue. It can be helped by giving them lots of mental stimulation and exercise too. If they are jumping up on to the counters, try to stop this as soon as possible. Ideally try commanding them to ‘leave it’ every time it happens.

Final thought on how to manage a misbehaving dog

Once you can deal with those most common scenarios, the behaviour will likely improve. You are going to be in a much better place with a better behaved dog. So that’s something that you should consider when you worry about your dog’s behaviour.

As you can see, it’s relatively straightforward to deal with a misbehaving dog. However, it does take some hard work and persistence. Nonetheless, as long as you take these steps your dog should temper their behaviour no time at all.

Further reading on pet behaviour and petsitting

At Housesitmatch.com we like to share useful blogs and practical advice about housesitters, housesitting and pet sitting. We hope you find this small selection of our blogs on house sitters useful.

How to train a dog to be good with children

Pet sitting services from Housesit Match

Pet and housesitters keep pets safe at home and save money

What a housesitter does – Top 10 responsibilities

Preparing a home for a house or pet sitter