(Excerpt from ghostwritten article on pet training)
According to “Consistency is Key When Training a Pet,” an article written in the Wisconsin State Journal, the author states, “The secret to training any pet, whether it’s a 5-weekold puppy or a 3-year-old cat, is giving immediate praise and reprimand for good and bad behaviors.” Not only does the author provide this very helpful tip, but he provides a very interesting and unique punishment for the pet: squirt them with water from a bottle. Nielsen-Eeg states, “”The cat believes heaven just opened up and water fell on him.” This punishment is completely humane and harmless, but still extremely affective. However, some trainers focus completely on the punishment. They forget to praise their pets, or vice versa. They focus on praising but not reprimanding. Both are very important. If one action is ignored, the pet will not understand whether or not it is ok to do. The wrong message may be sent in that scenario. When a pet does something good, or that they are supposed to, they should be praised, whether it’s with a toy, or a special piece of meat, they should be rewarded. Once the pets learn which behaviors cause praises and which causes punishments, they’ll begin to practice the actions more often, even when the trainer isn’t home.
While training a pet, the trainer should always be around. There has to be constant supervision. If the trainer isn’t around, or there isn’t constant supervision, not all actions will be noticed by the pet, which will then cause confusion. For example, if the trainer isn’t around one time when the cat scratches the couch, they aren’t going to be reprimanded. However, when the trainer reprimands the cat when he does notice, the cat will be confused, because one time it was “ok” and the other wasn’t. It’s understandable that the trainer won’t always be around, in order to avoid some conflictions, it’s strongly suggested that dogs remain in a training kettle and cats remain in a small bathroom. There will be less distractions for the pets, and shouldn’t cause much confusion.
