What is the one thing you wish you knew prior to getting a pet?

That is my question to you this week.

For some, it may be the time commitment needed to help integrate a pet into the home.

• How much time should a pet parent spend with their companion animal?

This means that the animal needs quality time and attention–not just in the beginning, but for the long term.

Perhaps it is the financial commitment a pet requires.

• Just how much is it going to cost to maintain a pet properly?

Maybe it concerns the pet problems faced from simply obtaining a young animal.

• Is it better to get a young animal, an adolescent, or an older pet?
• What are the pros and cons for each?
• What unique problems will it present to the new pet household?

Or possibly problems in trying to sort out just what training methods are the best–or who to turn to for help.

• What animal training programs are the best?
• How do I find quality pet professionals to help?

Whatever you wish you might have known, take a minute to ponder your questions and leave them in the comments or over on my Facebook community (if the comments are closed).

I’ll be taking a closer look at your questions in the near future.

Pet parents are savvy folks and they teach what they want and correct what they don’t want.

The problem many people encounter is that they fail to take action when it is needed and so teach their pet to misbehave by default.

Take the problem of pulling on the leash.

If you look around and observe people everywhere, you will see just how common it it for people to fail to control their pets.

Instead, they allow the pulling and follow the dog–or worse, get dragged around by the dog.

I once had a 95 pound woman tell me that her 3 pound dog could drag her across the parking lot.

Without blinking I said, “It is impossible for your dog to drag you across the parking lot he is not strong enough to do so.”

It was physically impossible but the woman followed her dog willingly and then complained that it was the dog that “forced” her across the parking lot.

By failing to take action to correct poor behavior when it begins or first occurs, people actually train their pets the wrong behaviors.

This is because everything you do is teaching your pet how to behave.

You are training behavior each and every day with every action you take or don’t take.

Often, in the early stages, many behaviors are not perceived as a problem.

Take puppies for instance.

How many times have you heard someone say, “It is okay, he (or she) is just a puppy.”

The problem is that puppies grow up with those “it is okay” issues.

Those issues become really big challenges when the pet has grown up.

Plus, those problems are firmly ingrained and hard to change simply because they were not stopped when they first occurred.

Jumping, pawing and pulling on the leash are just a few of those problems and I am sure you can think of more.

So, if your pet has a behavior that you don’t like, think back to when it first occurred and how it might have been taught by default by you or someone in your family.

Take a look at the behaviors you don’t like and make a list.

Next, see if  you can focus on the right behaviors and reward those instead.

You can also start replacing a bad behavior with a good one–that is something we are going to teach in the Pet Parenting School.

If you are interested and have not yet signed up for the early bird notification–make sure you do so now.

Photo Credit: Grant & Caroline