Effective Communciation With Your Dog
Failure to understand your dog's behaviour and how to properly train your dog is the cause of some people giving up their dogs and abandoning them in some instances.
Actually, your dog does communicate with you for much of the time you spend tpgether. So not learning to understand your dog's body language is similar to living with your life with someone who speaks another language, and never learning any of that language in order to communicate with that person.
Two-way communication is obviously important, especially, with your dog who does "speak another language". Dogs love to play, but their primary concern is often their position in your "pack". Dogs will always make attempts to get to the top dog position if you allow this to go on. Some dogs might take it as a game while some might take this seriously, any may threaten any "pack" members who doesn't defer to them - sometimes including their owner. Gesture like jumping up and stand with their front paws on owner's shoulders could be a friendly gesture, yet could also be a posture of dominance.
A better greeting to encourage your dog is to have your dog sit and then you offer a greeting to your dog. In this way, the dog has assumed a subordiante posture, and you retains your leadership role and your position as the top dog. And your dog will love this exchange with you. The important thing is that your dog understands his/her position in the "pack".
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Training Your Dog Effectively
Some people believe that dogs needs to be trained when they are young. To some extent for your own sanity that's true - especially with housetraining, and teaching your dog that chewing shoes/slippers/anything that's accessible, is simply not acceptable.
But despite the old adage "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" its perfectly possible to teach a dog of virtually any age new behaviours - basically dog training boils down to rewarding your dog when s/he does something you like, and correcting your dog when s/he does something you don't like.
Good training establishes an appropriate relationship between you and your dog, and it ensures that your dog understands what you want of him/her,
The idea is to teach your dog to make his/her call - whether to do something or not. If s/he makes the right decision, s/he will be rewarded. If they made a wrong decision, s/he will receive a correction and the opportunity to then choose the right decision.
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