One way to gain the trust of an adopted dog is to speak very gently to it and to feed it treats.  This might be a good idea if you need to lure him out of a hiding place.  At first, try to speak softly to the dog while extending treats to him. Be sure to feed him a treat each time he lets you touch him.  Eventually you can start trying to get him to focus on you by hand feeding him. 

It is very important to not leave your new adopted dog alone at first. Try to be with the dog 24/7 for at least the first three weeks after you bring him home. If you are unable to do this, the dog could develop panic and anxiety. Many adopted dogs will display panic if you leave them alone. You need to teach the adopted dog that if you do leave you will always come back. 

To get your dog used to being by himself, try leaving the house for two minutes and then re-entering and then extending the period of time until the dog stops freaking out when you leave. This helps create a trust bond between the two of you. Another way to gain the trust of your adopted dog is to try and play with it. Few dogs can resist a good game of tug of war. Try to holding out a cloth, stick or sock while you hold the other. Many dogs like a dirty old tea towel.

Make sure that if you do choose a stick that you do not hold it in a threatening manner especially if you do not know the dog’s history.  The worst thing you could do is trigger a bad reaction in a dog that has been hit before. He could hide and you wouldn’t see him much. 

Your dog thrives on approval so the only thing you have to remember is to not give him affection after he misbehaves. However if you give a dog a good reason to behave, he will probably exceed your wildest expectations when it comes to obedience.  An adopted dog can be especially rewarding emotionally this way. T

he best way to create a snarling, snappy disobedient dog is to continually humiliate or criticize it. This is what will sabotage his trainer faster then affection ever could.  This is especially true if the dog has been traumatized in the past. Nothing makes a dog happier than making eye contact with you and then hearing and feeling praise and affection.

A dog may start obeying commands simply because it means he gets to spend more time with you so it is a good idea to be as affectionate with the dog as possible when it is appropriate.  Make the dog feel owned. After your dog seems more confident and trusting of you, you can take him outside and reward him with plenty of fresh air and exercise. Just one more thing to remember when it comes to training your adopted dog –never harshly disciplines a dog from a pound or shelter. You could get bitten.

Sometimes when you adopt a dog the dog starts acting out. Many adopted dogs act depressed when you think they would be happy to have a new home. This is not something you should take personally. An adopted dog may be depressed for many reasons – its owner could have died or it may have been abandoned or hurt. 

Most dogs from a shelter are very mistrustful at first and may even be grieving the loss of a pet companion or human owner.  That’s why adopted dogs can seem very withdrawn. Your first task as the owner of an adopted dog is to get him to trust you. Make friends!

This is easier said then done as most dogs are very nervous and upset to leave a shelter as it reminds them of other times in their lives when they have been through a big change. Speak in quiet tones and try to show the dog affection. 

Most dogs are understandably fearful for the first few days after adoption so give the new pet as much privacy as possible. Also avoid startling the pet in any way, as you are not sure how it will react.  As tempting as it is to introduce him to all your friends and show him off let him explore his new surroundings on his own terms.  

An adopted dog may have been trained badly or not at all in the first place so you can expect an adopted dog to have any number of behavioral problems – For instance a dog that was starved by a previous owner or that was running wild might develop behaviors such as growling over a food bowl when a child passes by, gulping food, begging for food, hiding food, digging holes in which to hoard food and stealing food.   Malnourished dogs may also become over protective of their territories. They can also become over protective of their chew toys and owners.

 Dogs that were deprived of food are often developmentally challenged as well and don’t have well-developed eyesight, hearing, coordination or brains.  Dogs that have been wild and have never been socialized can also be very difficult to train. This is especially true if the dog had no contact with human between the age of three and 14 weeks. They can react fearfully or aggressively to new people or experienced.

Lack of housetraining is very common among adopted dogs.  Often the previous owners may have turned the dog in simply because they couldn’t train him not to piddle indoors. Dogs who urinate inside or soil the home may have never been housetrained in which case it now becomes your job to correct the situation.   

Dogs from a pound or shelter can also display destructive behavior. These dogs usually have a history of being left alone all day and find eating the couch or tearing apart the garbage pail to be intellectually stimulating and fun. This is your cue to distract him with training exercises, which will also help bond you to your dog.

 Is it really that much harder training a dog from a shelter?

It really does depend on the dog’s personality and how much it was abused, whether it was a house dog and what its breed is. Remember that each dog is as individual and unique as a person.

Let’s just say that it is a given that if you adopt a stray dog that you are taking a bigger risk then if you bought a pedigreed dog from a breeder.

The reason that a dog from a shelter will be harder to train is that you don’t know its history or background. You don’t know if it has ever been kicked or starved or anything else about its history. If it’s a total mutt you may not even be able to determine the dog’s breed mix by its appearance, which makes how trainable it might be even more unpredictable then ever. A mutt could have all of the aggressive personality traits of a breed that is known to be a little hostile to humans without you knowing it. 

If you adopt a dog from a pet shelter be ready for anything!  First of all dog usually reacts to his new home with some kind of strange behavior.  You could encounter biting, chewing, barking, nipping, submissive urination, whining and fear of other dogs or people. The dog could have a chronic health problem or psychological problem due to abuse that you could not even imagine. 

However the better Rescue Shelters make sure that any dog that is adopted is not sick. It could also simply be that the dog ended up in a shelter because the original owner simply could not train it. The shelters are full of alpha dogs that pet owners could not control or that they could not afford to send to a professional trainer for behavior management.  The dog then becomes YOUR problem. 

Not every dog adopted from a shelter is an unpredictable or alpha dog but a dog that is obtained from a shelter has a higher risk of being a threat to other pets and children in your household. This is because losing its home and ending up in a shelter can traumatize it.   Sometimes you can find a well-trained dog that was taken to the shelter because its owner passed away in which case you don’t necessarily have to worry about adopting a dog that is too dominant for you to handle. I

f you are going to adopt a dog from a shelter, the only thing you might have to rely on when it comes to guessing how easy the dog is to train is some guess at his breed. For instance, a big Dalmatian would probably be greatly irritated in a house full of kids and a tiny little shaky Chihuahua with health problems is not a great pet for a busy careerist. Usually a staff member can give you at least a little bit of information about the breed so you have some information about how it is most likely to behave after you adopt it.

Sometimes we find ourselves trying to mask pet odors instead of getting rid of them once and for all. Here are some tried and true techniques for actually making the problem worse rather than better. 

Dumping baby powder scented baking soda or powdered deodorizers into your cat’s litter boxes. All you are doing is overwhelming your cats with scents that will disgust them.  This may encourage them to go to the bathroom elsewhere in your home. 

Dumping absorbent powder onto a carpet to try and absorb the pet accident. This does not solve any reeking problem at all as 90% of the urine is still under the carpet, carpet padding and dripping into your sub floor.  There will always be the lingering scent of ammonia as the cat or dog pee degrades beneath the carpet. 

Scrubbing vigorously with a wet brush to clean urine stains from carpet. This is a good way to spread the stain and increase its diameters. If you use too much water then you are also soaking the carpet and underpadding with diluted urine. The lingering odor tempts the pet to go in the same place again. 

Using any home made mixture of vinegar, water, baking soda or soap to clean up urine from fabrics, floor and carpets.  The more liquid you apply to the problem, the more you spread the stain and the more you spread the odor. Vinegar does kill some bacteria but it leaves a strong odor that can actually encourage pets to urinate in the same place again.  

Spraying the area with an aerosol or foam disinfectant. Although this might kill some bacteria, disinfectants such as Lysol or often leave a strong odor that combines with the ammonia in the urine to create an even stronger smell that can linger for days. The bleaches and chemicals can make a stain look worse by giving it a brown or white edge.  

Using ammonia based cleaner. Avoid products like Mr. Clean that contain ammonia. When pet urine biodegrades it reverts to ammonia. When your pet smells ammonia it interprets it as a green light to eliminate in the same spot again.  

Using citrus-based cleaners to clean a cat box.  If you use a citrus based cleaner to clean out your cat’s litter box he or she may be so repelled by the smell that they choose to go outside the litter box.  They may clean the stain if it is on a floor and leave a fresher scent on a carpet but unfortunately it does not eliminating ammonia from urine. This can also tempt your pet to go in the same place again. 

Neglecting to clean up messes for a couple of days.  Urination on carpets and floors becomes such a fact of life that some people just give up. This allows odor to really set into fabrics, floors and carpets. This also sends a message to your pet that it is okay to go in the same spot again.