Introduction
Dog obedience can be promoted, as long as you follow positive reinforcement practices when you are relating to your dog. This type of practice has been proven to promote obedience, and it will strengthen the bond of trust and friendship between you and your dog. Positive reinforcement is also the only method that should be used to teach your dog commands.
Training Tips
Positive reinforcement is a technique that relies on rewarding good behavior, and ignoring bad behavior. Every time your dog is being good, give your dog lots of attention and affection. When your dog successfully completes a command give your dog lots of praise and an occasional treat. Your dog will quickly learn that good behavior results in the thing they want the most: attention from you.
Negative reinforcement is a technique that uses punishment to address bad behavior in dogs. This technique actually encourages bad behavior though, because the dog is still getting attention from you. Dogs are so much like children; any attention for them is good attention. Dogs are even willing to risk physical punishment, just so they can get attention from their owner. When negative reinforcement is used, a dog quickly learns that bad behavior equals attention.
Maintaining rules around your house will also help to prevent disobedient behavior in your dog. Your dog needs to know that there are boundaries and rules that should not be crossed; giving your dog a set of rules will help your dog to learn what appropriate behavior is. Again, when you are teaching your dog rules of the home, do so through positive reinforcement.