Proper Timing in Dog Training
Possibly the most troublesome aspect of training a dog for most people is learning to time properly praise or correction. The difficulty lies largely in the fact that dogs lack the capacity for language on the human scale. Language allows people to communicate to each other which actions are right and which are wrong. Through language, we can also be told if a current reward or correction is the result of a past action.
Dogs, however, are not able to bridge the gap between the past and present in this fashion, nor can they be told what they have done wrong. The question becomes, then, what will fill the void and connect an owner's praise or correction to a dog's action? The answer is timing.
How to Learn Proper Timing
To time properly your response to a dog's action, you will have to learn how to read your dog's body language. Let's say you want to keep your dog (we'll call him Buddy) from digging up your flowers. If you wait to correct Buddy until he's finished digging then it's too late, and showing him the damage he's done will not help either. Even if you correct him when he first starts digging, it will still be too late. The best way to get through to Buddy is to correct him when he's thinking about digging up the flowers but has not yet acted on the impulse.
Reading a dog's body language may sound difficult, but it is exactly what good dog training classes and books teach you to do. Just be sure to carry out consistently whatever training method you choose.
