If you wanna be Understood by Dogs & understanding Dogs

• Be patient! Think on how many years you would need to learn a foreign language. A dog needs time and practice to learn the consequences of it's owner's words.
• Motivate your dog. Dogs need to be motivated in order to learn, as well as we do.
• Let your dog know in a very clear way that you are proud of it for its actions. If the rules are clear, fair and consequent, they will contribute to make your dog feel secure.
• Join your orders with corporal and facial gestures. Dogs usually understand the visual signs better than the auditive signs.

Sometimes dogs seem to forget which conducts are appropriate and which ones aren't, so they may need refresh classes. But, thinking about it and being comprehensive, this situation can be solved. Ask yourself why your dog is showing an inappropriate behavior and try to teach your dog again using the positive reinforcement. If the dog misbehaves, don't reward it, your dog will learn that behaving in a certain way, it will get a reward and it will repeat the desired action in order to get the reward. For many dogs, the most effective punishment when you don't want them to repeat certain action is to ignore them or get the family to temporarily ignore them.

Dogs make anything in order to call people's attention, even when the attention comes alone with a quarrel or a punishment and they learn very fast when the punishment consists simply in depriving them of congratulations and rewards.

EXPRESSIONS AND GESTURES

Training should bring along rewards, or the denial of them, with verbal or gestural expressions in order to get the dog to associate the mere expression with the reward or the punishment (it means, the absence of rewards). These expressions of approval or disapproval are usually verbal, even when it doesn't need to be necessarily like that.

Once a sign of disapproval is related to the deprivation of reward, this will be enough to interrupt any undesired attitude and no punishment or quarrel will be necessary for the animal.

SIGNS OF DISAPPROVAL

You can show disapproval with your voice (saying "no-no", for example), making objects sound (like special percussion instruments) or through sings (reaching out your extended hand with the back part on the direction of the dog). In order to get the animal to associate this sign to the denial of the reward you can:

• Look for a reward that will really interest your dog.  (small servings of food)
• Give the dog two portions and put the third one on the floor.
• When the dog aims to take the one on the floor, say "no-no" or use the chosen sign of disapproval and pick the thing up immediately.
• Repeat the process until the dog backs up and avoids the food when it notices the sign. You should need to repeat this exercise about six times.
• Finally, repeat the whole process from the beginning with another reward, for example substituting the treat for the dog's favorite toy or for a walk to the park. In this way, you will reinforce the association on the dog's mind. Now you can use this expression to interrupt any undesired behavior.