Your Checklist For Training The West Highland Terrier

Obedience training with your West Highland
Terrier can be a fun activity for you both. It
gives them mental stimulation, which they enjoy,
and it also helps you bond with your best friend
and help shape their behavior into what it
should be for them to fit into your society. For
the most part, training a Westie is not difficult
if you do it correctly. This article looks at a
checklist of things to remember when training
your West Highland Terrier.

1. You should always try to remain positive -
Westies respond badly to harsh techniques such
as hitting or tugging them on a chain. Always
reward your Westie's good behavior and avoid the
temptation to punish them for anything. If you
do, they might become stubborn and hard to
train.

2. Keep your training sessions short. Generally,
a Westie will not do well being trained for long
periods at a time. Instead, try to limit each
session to about 10 minutes and keep it fun and
interesting.

3. Make sure you have the right supplies.
Typically, if you're going to be positively
reinforcing them you need some sort of reward.
This is often food treats at first. Also, you
should keep your Westie on a leash, particularly
in public. As they are a terrier breed, if they
see something to chase they will generally chase
it due to their prey instincts.

4. Don't move too quickly - a Westie is a fairly
smart breed, but don't expect the same results as
training a Border Collie or German Shepherd.
Start with the basics and progress at their
pace. Soon enough you'll find that with enough
patience you will get the results you're looking
for.

5. Try using a clicker - since your Westie will
respond well to positive reinforcement, making
use of a clicker will help speed things along
that little bit more. When clicker training, you
use a device to make a click whenever your Westie
does something correctly and reward them. The
result is they more quickly associate their
behavior as being a positive action.

6. You should always start training a dog early
- and this is especially true of a West Highland
Terrier. If you allow them to develop behavior
problems and set no ground rules then they may
become next to impossible to train later on. At
the very least it will be much more difficult to
correct a Westie's behavior problems once they
become set in their ways.

7. Socialize your Westie well. This means
letting them meet as many people and other dogs
as possible - while they're still a puppy. They
are a generally friendly breed and should enjoy
this process. Doing so will make them much more
pleasant once they reach adulthood.

8. Keep training your Westie - even once you've
mastered the basics with them, keep teaching
them new things so they have new mental
challenges. This keeps them from getting bored
and developing any destructive behavior.


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