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It's true, you could be training your dog to react the wrong way and negatively to certain situations without even know that you're doing it. There are many situations and circumstances in everyday life that are training your dog and shaping his behavior in the wrong way based on your reactions to certain situations. By the time you finish reading this article, you'll understand exactly when these situations may occur and how to respond to them correctly.

Think about this next statement for a second: 'Your dog only knows what happens when.' This means that your dog relates what will happen next time based on what happened this time.

As an example, lets say that you are expecting company. The guests finally arrive and then knock at the door. WOOF WOOF!!! Your dog then starts barking and running excitedly around the house wondering who is at the door. Then in a loud voice you tell your dog to 'QUIET DOWN, LOOK OUT' as you kind of shove him aside and go to open up the door. OK.. So then you open the door and invite your guests in. Your dog, excited to see them too, jumps up to them and showers them with kisses. As a response to your dog jumping on your guests you yell at your dog and then decide to put him in the basement because he was over-excited an unruly.

Soon enough what will happen is that your dog will become anxious and even more out of control whenever someone comes over to visit if the scenario described above keeps happening. Your dog could possibly even become aggressive towards guests as a result. What your dog understands is that whenever you and your family are alone with him everything is great! But, what he has concluded about when visitors come over is that he always gets yelled at and locked in the basement. Thus, you have taught your dog that whenever you have guests over, he'll get yelled at and locked in the basement. Now, in your dogs mind, guests are a negative situation for him.

The whole point I am trying to make here is that you need to be aware how you handle your dog with each and every situation to ensure that you aren't creating a negative experience for him. It's not easy to do but if you start with just making yourself aware and conscious of how you handle your canine, that's a start. I can't possibly cover every situation to look out for or how to properly handle them in this article. Think about other situations that pop up and how you interact with your dog during those situations. You'll probably realize there are more times than not that you can correct your reaction to help you and your dog to have a much better life together. That being said, I hope to have shed some light on how you may be training your dog the wrong way without even knowing it.