Pets – breeding, nutrition, health

You can make your dog more obedient and get rid of their behavior problems just by using the techniques that SitStayFetch teaches in their course, or at least that is what they claim. So I will be conducting a case study to determine if their dog training tips will work to make my dog obedient to my commands.

For my case study of SitStayFetch’s dog training tips, I will be training my German Shepherd dog, Bear, who has no training experience. For my first experiment, I will be teaching my dog the command: ‘come’. This is Bear’s main problem right now, he does not come when called and it leads to a lot of frustration.

Bear’s favorite thing to do is run along the fence, which happens to be in my garden, playing tag with the dog next door. This of course does not make me happy because he is destroying my beautiful garden. When I see him doing this, I call out to him with a ‘Bear. . .come. . .’ command. Upon hearing me, he stops for a brief moment, glances back at me and then proceeds with his running and playing.

In frustration from my dog ignoring me, I raise my voice and repeat the come command. Bear will then not pay any attention to anything I say, and will keep running up and down the fence without even looking at me. I then become very annoyed and go grab Bear by the collar and drag him into the house, all the while letting him know how I feel. So I read up on what SitStayFetch teaches about the come command and found out I was going about it all wrong. You see, dogs think differently than humans. Not only does SitStayFetch teach you how to teach your dog a command, they also explain why the command works.

What lessons does SitStayFetch teach us about training our dogs to be obedient? The main thing we learn is that dogs learn from positive reinforcement and not negative reinforcement. This means they do not learn that they need to listen better and perform the command better next time to avoid their master yelling at them. They instead learn that the command given means they will get punished and they make a mental note to not listen to that command because they do not want to get punished. So, if we want our dogs to listen to our commands, SitStayFetch teaches us that we need to use positive reinforcement to reward our dogs for listening to the command. By using positive reinforcement, the dogs learns that by listening to the command good things will happen and he will want to do what you say.

To teach our dog the command ‘Come’, we need to make it as positive as possible so our dog learns that the command means good stuff and not bad things like before. To do this, SitStayFetch has several tips, but since this is a review article, I’ll keep it to the 3 most important tips.

One: Get some treats that your dog will enjoy. You can try cheese, hotdogs, and dog treats. I use Cheetos for Bear because they are his favorite food.

Two: Make sure you speak to your dog with a cheerful voice when you say the command.

Three: Make sure you have a long leash handy which will help reinforce exactly what the command means for your dog.

So with my new tips in hand I put Bear on my 15 foot leash and let him go outside. The results. . .

At first Bear did not respond because he had been preprogrammed by me that the command ‘come’ was bad. So I initially had to say “Bear. . .Come. . .”, and real him in to me, using the leash, while saying, “Good Boy Bear. . . Good Come. . .” in a very cheery voice, and then giving him a piece of a hot dog. Boy was he excited over that! Then I repeated this by letting him play with his neighbor dog friend and then saying “Bear. . .Come. . .”, reeled him in while giving him praise and a nice treat. It was not long that Bear soon realized when I said “Bear. . .Come” that he was going to get praise and treats and would come running on command. I was so ecstatic and grateful that my dog finally learned to come when I called him.

Therefore, does the SitStayFetch program actually help stop your dog’s behavior problems? I have to say, from personal experience, that yes it does do what they claim. I have applied all the techniques they say to teach my dog the ‘come’ command and it worked like a charm. So far, I am very pleased with the results. Bear now comes on command when he is playing with his friend next door. If you apply these techniques that SitStayFetch teaches, your dog will also come on command when called. Give the techniques mentioned in this article a try and you will also see great results.