You see, dogs work in a pack hierarchy mentality where there is one leader and many followers. The leader of the pack is the dog who gets first dibs on everything from toys to food and does whatever he feels like doing. The leader will make all the decisions for the pack and the other dogs, being followers, will do whatever the leader will allow them to do. So, it is essential that your dog see you as the leader before you begin training, and he will then listen to you and obey your commands much faster. Here are 5 techniques you can start putting into practice to make your dog learn that you are the leader of the pack and he is just the follower.

An excellent yet simple method to get your dog to start obeying your wants is in the way you present your dogs meals. Make sure you eat something first, even a small snack will work. Then after you are finished, you can begin preparing your dogs meal by pouring his food into his bowl and mixing it with your hands. This simply distributes your sent throughout the food, further proving to your dog that you are in charge. Then make your dog sit before you place his bowl down. Doing this will reinforce you are the boss because in packs, the leader always eats first. Then once the leader is finished eating, the others may eat. This is a simple alpha training method that will help reinforce in your dogs mind that you are in charge.

One more method you can use to make sure your dog knows that you are the leader is when you come home. You see, in a dog’s world, the leader is always greeted first. So, by you immediately greeting your dog when you first walk in the door, you are strengthening his position that he is indeed the leader. In order to emphasize that you are the leader, you need to ignore him when you first get home. I know this will be hard, but when you first walk in the door, greet all the people in your household first, wait until your dog is calm, and then call him over and give him as much attention as you want. Your dog will soon realize that he is not in charge and the only way he will get attention when you come home is by being calm.

Next method is for you to make all the decisions for your dog. This one, I feel, takes the most time and is the hardest for us to implement simply because we love our dogs and it is hard to deny them love and attention. You see, in a pack, the leader makes all the decisions and the rest of the pack follows the leader. So, when you dog demands it is play time or wants some love and attention, you simply ignore him. This one is much easier to read than it is to implement. You must make all the decisions for your dog. If he wants to play and brings a toy over to you, ignore him until he gives up, then grab his toy and ask him if he wants to play. You see, it on your time and not his. Pretty soon, your dog will realize that you are making all the decisions and will await your next instruction because he will see you as the leader.

Bedtime is one more method where you can show your dog that you are the leader. The alpha dog, in the pack, always gets the best of everything, including where he sleeps. When they all sleep, the alpha dog gets the highest spot over all the other dogs because they are looking out after their pack. So, when you go to bed, you need to make sure that your dog sleeps on the floor in his bed while you sleep up higher than him in your bed. You can still play with your dog while in bed or while you are watching a movie before your go to sleep, but when it is time to go to sleep, you need to make your dog go lie down in his own bed.

The last way you can demonstrate to your dog that you are the alpha leader is by grooming him and rubbing his belly. In the dog world, lying down displays submission to an authority leader and a pack leader will never show submission to those under him. This is what will make these sessions so great. It’s a fun and relaxing way for both you and your pet and it also proves to your dog that you are the leader and he is subordinate to you. All you have to do is make your dog lay down on his side and then brush him and rub his belly. This may be hard to do at first since your dog is not used to doing this, but as you continue to it, it will become easier and he will even begin to look forward to his grooming sessions.

When you put these five methods presented above into practice, your dog will soon begin to learn that you are the leader and he is the follower. Once he learns this lesson, your regular training sessions will go much more smoothly and easier since he already knows you are the leader and he place is to follow and do what ever you want him to do.

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Here’s a normal day with Bear. I let him outside to go potty and get some exercise. I soon notice he starts running up and down the fence with my neighbors dog playing tag and tearing up my garden, urg. I call him with a “Bear. . .Come. . .” command and do you know what he does? He looks at me, acknowledging I said something, and then keeps on playing, completely ignoring me. Now frustration sets in, so I start shouting “Bear. . .Come!!!” He will not even acknowledge me now. So I start yelling in frustration and go grab him by the collar and make him come inside, letting him know I am angry at him for not listening to me. I am sure many dog owners have been there and done that. The reason why my dog is not listening to me is a great lesson that SitStayFetch teaches us and just implementing the why will make our dogs a lot more obedient to our commands.

So what lesson does SitStayFetch teach us, to make our dogs more obedient? They instructs us that when we do discipline our dog for not listening, that they are not learning what we want them to learn because dogs think differently than humans. What we see as ‘urg, dumb dog, you need to listen to me’, the dog will see it as I get in trouble when I hear the command ‘come’ so, I better not go. When we get angry at our dogs and start yelling at them while trying to train them with a command, this will cause them to think that the command we are training them to learn means bad things and they will begin to ignore it. Thus, our dog ignores us, we get mad, and the vicious cycle continues. So, this program tells us that instead of getting angry, we need to teach our dogs that the come command means good things.

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: Have some great treats in hand. Some good treats they mention are dog treats, cheese and hot dogs. I use cheetos and hot dogs, but not dog treats since Bear does not care for them, go figure. Two: Use a positive cheery voice when using the command and say “Bear. . . Come. . .”. Three: Use a long leash so you can reel him in when saying come. 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.

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