Most pet owners become so intimate with their dogs that they eventually spoil their canines. If you consistently indulge your dog in certain activities without setting rules and boundaries, you may end up spoiling them.
However, there's a difference between treating your dog well and spoiling them. As a pet lover, you need to take good care of your canine friend, but going too extreme can result in pampering the dog.
If you want to avoid spoiling your dog, you need to understand the difference between treating them nicely - like buying those toys and healthy food – and spoiling them by not setting any boundaries. Giving your canine a little discipline can make them show good manners, especially to your visitors. So, if you fancy learning about how to avoid spoiling your dog, keep reading this article to get the most helpful tips.
Setting rules and boundaries
To avoid spoiling your dog, you should ensure they can differentiate between right and wrong behavior. You can help them in knowing what is right by rewarding them for doing the right things, perhaps helping you to bring an object located far from you when you need the object.
In such cases, you may simply pat your dog on their head or scratch the back of their ears to appreciate them.
However, you need to set boundaries for your canine. For instance, if you don't want your dog to see your nudes, you should always send them back before you enter your bathroom. Don't also allow them to enter your room when you're taking off your clothes.
By doing that, you're setting boundaries for your canine. Consistently doing so will enable your dog to become used to the right behaviors.
In addition, if you don't want your dog to mess up the floor with their dirty paws after playing outdoors, you need to consistently teach them to wait at the entrance for you to clean their paws before stepping into the room.
Also, ensure you inform everyone spending time with your dog about those rules so that they can also reinforce them.
Giving them obedience training
Perhaps you just get a new dog and you want to avoid spoiling them, then you should give them obedience training. Your dog should learn to obey your orders and corrections.
Also, if you just brought home a puppy, ensure you start training them after a few weeks. Training your canine to be obedient teaches them good manners and prevents them from becoming spoilt.
Consistent obedience training can teach your canine that there's a reward for good behavior and that bad behavior should be corrected.
Obedience training also teaches a dog that they can't get a reward for just any behavior but for good ones. Thus, knowing that they will get a reward for obeying instructions will make your dog respond well to obedience training, hence they won't become spoilt.
Rewarding them for good behaviors
Learning is a gradual process and most animals learn through "conditioning", that is, they associate rewards and punishments with certain conditions. Therefore, rewarding your canine when they behave well can make them keep behaving well to be more rewarded.
Similarly, rebuking your dog for bad behaviors make them stay away from such behaviors.
Your dog will associate a reward with the condition of good manners and corrections with bad behavior. Thus, your canine will stay away from bad habits. This makes them less pampered and more disciplined.
Teaching them food manners
It is important to ensure your dog doesn't have bad eating habits. They should not be allowed to eat from a plate used to feed humans–even as a reward for good conduct.
Not allowing your dog to eat directly from your plate teaches your dog that they shouldn't eat any food that isn't apportioned to them. It will be embarrassing if your dog puts their mouth in a visitor's food, so, you want to ensure that doesn't happen.
Also, your dog should have food specifically for them–perhaps dog's meals–and not meals prepared for a human's pallet. You may give them leftovers of your food as a reward for obedience and good behavior, nevertheless, it shouldn't be done every time.
Dogs get motivated when they're given food and they may keep asking for more even after their regular meal–which should be enough. Therefore, teaching your canine good feeding habits can help you prevent spoiling them with food.
Giving them toys
Dogs love to play with toys and sometimes chew those toys, but you need to ensure they chew only their toys and no other objects in the home.
You should set boundaries for your canine concerning things they can play with within the house. Teach them that shoes, bags, clothes, or anything else in the house are not toys and shouldn't be chewed, otherwise, they may start destroying some items in your home.
You shouldn't reward your dog for playing with a toy or any other item that doesn't belong to them. You should caution them by taking the item away from them and placing it where they cannot reach it. Doing so enables them to understand that such an item is not a toy to play with.
You can buy dolls and give them to your canine whenever you notice they're bored. You may also play with them holding the toys to make them understand that those toys belong to them.
Not playing with them when you're busy
Although, you should play with your dog when you notice they are bored, nevertheless do not allow them to make demands of you.
Playing with your dog every time they demand it can teach them that they control the schedule. You need to let them understand that you're not available to play with them when you're performing an important task.
You don't want your canine to intervene when you're in an official setting, perhaps attending an online meeting. Thus, you should teach them to stay away whenever you're doing something formal.
If you want to avoid spoiling your dog, you should set boundaries for playing with them.
Rebuking them from bringing foreign items
Although dogs are intelligent, they are not as wise as humans. Your dog may not know the difference between accepting gifts from people and stealing those gifts. Thus, if you notice that your dog consistently brings foreign items whenever it goes out, ensure you rebuke them.
Perhaps your dog just came back from your neighbor's house with an item, you may send them back to return the item. Doing so will make them build an attitude of not taking anything that does not belong to the.
Conclusion
You don't need to be strict with your dog or punish them every time they do something bad. You only need to set rules and boundaries for them and consistently correct them whenever they misbehave.Rewarding your dog for obedience and good behavior can help in conditioning their brain to know that you expect them to behave well and obey instructions.
After a while, your dog will realize that they get special attention, care, and treatment when they behave well and not when they disobey you. All of these help you to avoid spoiling your dog.