Build a Strong Bond with Your Dog

The fact that you are reading this article shows that you already care for and love your dog very much. However, to establish a good bond with a dog, we need caring as well as a good dose of rules and structure.

In bonding with a dog, it is important to establish ourselves as the pack leader. We need to teach our dog which are good dog behaviors and which are bad dog behaviors according to us humans. Our human laws primarily protect people and not dogs, thus it is up to us to protect our dog from situations that may cause him harm. This includes running into traffic, or accidentally biting people because of unrestrained playfulness, or dog aggression.

The best way to achieve a strong bond with your dog is to do regular joint activity with him, including dog exercise, dog play, dog obedience training, and dog grooming.

Always try to observe what your dog is trying to tell you and make sound decisions based on his temperament and level of tolerance, as well as his likes and dislikes.

Redirect your dog's energies into productive pursuits.

Most dogs naturally love running, chasing, chewing everything, jumping, smelling, eating poop, eating everything else, and rolling in smelly stuff.

These dog behaviors often lead to chewed up expensive shoes, mud on designer clothing, torn upholstery, and a variety of other delights that your dog will devise when left on his own. The best way to deal with these bad dog behaviors is to redirect your dog into positive and productive pursuits -

• Play running and chase games with your dog including recall training, hide and seek, and flirt pole.
• Get good and safe chew toys for your dog. I will frequently press cheese bits onto my dogs' chew toys so that they are even more motivated to on chew on them. You can also try soaking appropriate chew toys in chicken broth to give them an appealing scent.
• Make your dog work for all of his food through toys, training, handling, or grooming.
• Do obedience training with your dog, or engage him in a dog sport so that he gets to jump, run, and compete.
• Walk your dog every day on a loose leash so that he gets to explore and smell interesting environments.

Hand-feed your dog during these activities to further deepen your bond.

To build a strong bond with our dog we must not only look to what we desire but also how we can fulfill our dog's desires. Our dog will be happy and less likely to chew up our shoes if we give him acceptable outlets for his most loved activities.

This approach can also be used to get your dog to perform certain tasks that he may not like such as taking a bath. Instead of giving my Shiba Inu a regular bath in the shower stall, which he is really afraid of, I play the water hose game with him.

My Shiba Inu does not usually like getting wet, but he is happy to get totally soaked for the chasing game, and will even take a break for a washcloth scrub down.

By combining bathing and the water hose game I get to engage in a fun activity with my dog as well as get a previously unpleasant task done with no stress, no physical force, and lots of laughs.

Always be calm, consistent and fair with your dog.

To gain your dog's respect you must be calm, consistent, and fair with him.

Be calm - Do not yell or respond in anger with your dog. He is more likely to stay calm and listen to you if you are also calm.

Be consistent - Do not punish your dog for jumping on the bed one day, and not on another.

Be fair - Do not punish your dog for not performing a command if he does not understand what is required of him. By the same token, set and enforce rules within the house so that your dog is not bullying you.

If you always get angry or frustrated with your dog, it will be difficult to build a strong and healthy bond because he will not know what to expect from you.

Do not be fearful of your dog. A dog can easily sense your fear, and he will become uncertain and fearful himself because of it. Fear indicates a lack of trust in your dog, and frequently a lack of trust in yourself. You fear what your dog may do, and you fear that you will not be able to stop him.

To build a strong and healthy bond with your dog, always remain calm, consistent, and fair. This will make your dog feel safe because he will always know what to expect from you and what is expected from him. Establish a consistent set of verbal commands and hand gestures to communicate with your dog. Establish a consistent set of rules that your dog always must follow, and establish a consistent routine and schedule for his various dog activities.

Some dog trainers suggest that you must always walk ahead of your dog, go through entrances first, eat before your dog, and many other so-called dominance rituals to build a healthy bond based on leadership.

Some of these rules are useful not because they are dominance rules, but simply because they add structure to your relationship with your dog.

In fact the actual details of the rules do not matter much as long they help to define some boundaries and routine for your dog.

The rules themselves do not magically build a strong bond and make you into a respected leader. If you try to perform these actions with angry or fearful energy, your dog will most likely not comply, and misbehave or show aggression.

Build a bond that is based on mutual respect and not based on pain and fear.

Many proponents of aversive dog training argue that it is not possible to achieve a healthy bond with your dog if you do not use dominance techniques and physical force.

In order to be pack leader, they say, you must show the dog who is boss, and the dog must always follow every single one of your commands. Failure to do so will result in a swift physical correction which may be a leash jerk, finger poke, muzzle slap, or alpha roll.

They argue that this is especially true for stubborn, strong willed, and dominant dogs that will not respond to a well meaning but soft owner that chooses not to engage in a physical contest with his dog.

This is NOT true.

The best way to build a strong bond with your dog and to establish yourself as a good leader is to stay away from brute force physical techniques.

In a true physical contest, you can be sure that the dog would win - so trying to achieve leadership through physical dominance is misguided at best. If you see a group of stray dogs eating your garbage, do you walk up to them and try to wrestle them to the ground? I think not - and you should not do that to your own dog either.

Dominance and physical force techniques frequently work by inflicting pain and instilling fear in a dog. You can build a bond that is based on pain and fear, but it is much better to build a bond that is based on mutual respect.

The fact is, we are already natural leaders to our dogs because we have control over their most prized resources including food, shelter, toys, access to pack members, access to interesting locations, and access to other dogs. To establish ourselves as leader we simply need to teach our dogs this fact.

This is achieved through the Nothing in Life is Free (NILIF) program. All it means is that your dog has to do something for you before he gets any resource. Any bullying will be ignored or will result in the removal of the resource. With this program your dog will very quickly figure out that the simplest and fastest way to getting what he wants is by following your rules.

Even in wolf packs, a strong and confident alpha pair will tolerate a fair amount of misbehavior from subordinates, and save their strength and attention for more direct challenges which center around resource control, e.g. mating rights or food rights.

A strong leader, has no need to always force compliance because he is confident that when it counts he can easily command compliance. Be a confident and benevolent leader of the pack, not a tyrant.

Gain Your Dog's Trust.

Receiving love from your dog is very different from earning his trust.

Dogs have an immense capacity to love, but it takes a lot of work to earn their trust. Yet, this is an extremely worthwhile endeavor because once you have a dog's trust, you will be able to achieve a deeper bond and bring about a happy, well balanced, well behaved, canine friend.

Trust is acquired by always looking out for your dog's best interests. Being inconsistent with your dog or using forceful training techniques can destroy that trust.

Many people focus on themselves, their need for love, and their feelings of embarassment when their dog 'acts out'. To gain your dog's trust just focus on doing what is best for him without expecting anything in return. If you can do this, the returns will surely come.

Protect your dog from external threats or perceived external threats. It does not matter whether the threat is real or not. As long as your dog perceives it to be a threat and is stressed by it, you should step in and protect him.

Sometimes, being a good caretaker also means you must protect your dog from himself and do things that he may not like or understand.

If your dog is obese and loves to eat, make sure to put him on a strict diet so he does not develop health problems down the road. If your dog loves to run and chase, make sure you have him on a leash so that he doesn't run into traffic.

Take your dog to a vet at least once every year for his shots and for teeth cleaning.

Bonding with your dog is a give and take process.

Your dog is willing to do commands, endure hugs, walk on a leash, and comply with many other human rules and restrictions that he would never do in the wild.

In return, we should try to understand our dog and fulfill his needs to the best of our abilities.

Why physically punish a dog for being fearful of bathing, when you can make the experience fun, pleasant, and less stressful by turning it into a game?

If we give our dog the best that we have to give, he will give us his best in return, and that is when we form a strong and enduring bond.