Train To Fit Fido's Personality

"Come." "Sit." "Stay!"

Dog owners know these commands. Unfortunately, "talk to the paw" is too often the response from pampered pooches.

Dog behaviorist Kathy Santo has worked with hundreds of dogs and their owners, and she shares her training secrets in her new book, "Kathy Santo's Dog Sense."

Click here to read an excerpt.

Santo believes that every dog can be a "good dog." Her method of training is to first determine a dog's personality, then alter training to fit the dog.

What goes into determining a dog's personality? Santo has five criteria. She explains it on The Early Show:

1. Prime Motivation. Santo says, "What turns your dog on? Most people know if it's food, toys, kisses and hugs. People will tell me that my dogs don't like toys, but then when I visit the house, there are toys all over the place. The dog does like toys but is completely overindulged. The owner needs to back off. If you give your dog cookies or treats because he is cute, he won't be motivated by cookies and treats."

   Once you know what will motivate your dog, a toy or food or playing with you, you can use that to motivate them in training.

2. Energy Level.Do you have a manic dog or a real couch potato? Santo notes, " A lot of people are going to these dog training classes. It's an hour class and the dog shuts down after 10 or 15 minutes, getting the label of untrainable or stupid or willful. He's just tired. He would do way better if you gave them two 10-minute sessions a day. It's not the dog that fails these methods; it's the method that fails the dog."
3. Work Ethic. Does your dog enjoy doing things with you? Santo says a test for the work ethic is to hide your dog's favorite thing (or food) behind the couch and see how hard your dog works at getting it. Based on how they do, you know if you have a dog with a high, low, or middle work ethic. And, the base of the work ethic can be adjusted with training. The work ethic is one of the factors to determine how long the training sessions should be.
4. Emotional Sensitivity. How does your dog handle different situations? Santo says that emotionally sensitive dog will react badly when you move its food bowl five feet from its usual place. At the other end of the scale is a dog that won't really notice the change at all.

   "Sensitive dogs need to be brought along more slowly," says Santo. Sensitive dogs tend to need shorter, but more frequent training sessions. They also need to train in a number of different places because they react so sensitively to the environment. Dogs need to obey all the time, no matter where they are and what's going on.

5. Physical Sensitivity - What is their pain tolerance? Santo says, "Some dogs trip over a blade of grass and it's tragic. Other dogs can run into a parked car with their heads and not notice." Physical sensitivity is not dependent on dog size or breed. Big dogs can be very sensitive and little dogs can be scrappers. Knowing a dog's sensitivity is important when you need to give the dog a correction. (Santo corrects dogs with a tug on the leash) And, a correction is just that - a correction. It's not negative or positive.