in a full coat is not impossible.
Another consideration with a full coat is the potential breakage of the coat hairs by a training collar. You can run damage control in this area by addressing the coat or addressing the collar.
To help prevent the hair shafts from breaking while the dog is wearing his training collar, make sure the coat is fully brushed before putting the collar on. When brushing the coat, spray it with a mixture of conditioner and water (or one of the many leave-in detangling conditioners) to keep the hairs hydrated, supple, and less likely to break.
Choosing a good collar can also help. The preferred collar for training a Shih Tzu is a flat buckle or clip collar—the wider the better. (Wider collars distribute the force of a tug against the leash more evenly and are much kinder on the dog’s vertebrae than a thin collar.) Soft leathers, silky woven cottons, and smooth nylons may help to prevent hair breakage. Be sure to fit the collar so that two fingers can slide between the collar and the dog’s neck.
Even a young pup can learn commands!
Channeling the Positives
If you have purchased your Shih Tzu to be what it was bred to be—a constant, loving companion—you are going to thoroughly enjoy training your dog and will be able to experience the well-mannered fruits of your labor for many, many years to come.
If you purchased your Shih Tzu in hopes of producing an outstanding performance dog, you may want to lower your expectations a tad. There are incredible, high-drive Shih Tzu out there that win in agility trials and receive High in Trials in obedience. But these are more the exception to the breed rather than the rule.
What you can reasonably expect, with just a little bit of consistent, positive training, is a simply wonderful house pet. If you choose to continue on and train for obedience trials or agility competitions, a goal of earning titles in these sports is also well within the average pet owner’s reach.
To have success at any level of training, it is most important to get to know the Shih Tzu, learn to love him for his strengths, and learn to deal positively with his challenges. Do this and you are almost assured of owning a charming, well-trained Shih Tzu.
2 What’s Going on in That Brain?
When your Shih Tzu looks up at you with his big brown eyes, you can almost see his mind working in overdrive. Though small in size, the Shih Tzu is big on brains. Harnessing the “power of the pup” can be easy if you understand the basics of dog behavior.
How Dogs Learn
Entire books have been written on the subject of the cognitive abilities of dogs and how they process information. The subject is fascinating, but perhaps what is most interesting is that researchers may have found one of the reasons why the dog became man’s best friend. Somewhere along the evolutionary line, dogs developed a higher understanding of and ability to interpret what we humans are trying to tell them.
Research shows that dogs will make eye contact with people to initiate communication and solve problems. Dogs also understand how to follow the direction of a person’s point of the finger, a nod, a bow, or a turn of the head, something even rhesus monkeys cannot do without some training.
These findings may not sound like much, but it’s actually very cool stuff, considering we’ve probably only scratched the surface in understanding the full extent of a dog’s abilities. What’s really important to take away from this research is that when it comes to living with people, heightened communication skills with humans have been critical to the domestic dog’s success.
Visual Learning
So, you’ve probably lain awake at night wondering, “How do dogs learn?” Okay, probably not but, should you be curious, dogs are very much visual learners much in the same way as human infants.
If you are a parent or have worked with small children, you may already know that babies learn behaviors through mimicry. They watch and repeat the behavior if it makes sense to them. Recent studies have shown the same is true of dogs; however, the mimicry is not limited to a dog mimicking other dogs (i.e., interspecies). A puppy will mimic the behavior of humans as well as other dogs.
For example, if a dog is crated next to another dog and the other dog knows that pulling on a piece of ribbon releases a treat, the dog that is watching will be apt to try to pull the ribbon, too. The same is true if a dog is watching a person pull a ribbon; however, in the latter case, the dog must figure out how best to mimic this action on his own since he doesn’t have hands. Seeing may not be believing, but it certainly is learning for the dog.
Body Language
Dogs depend largely on body language to communicate.
Ever wonder why Shih Tzu seem to recognize (and play really well with) other Shih Tzu? No one really quite understands it; however, it could be that within each breed’s genetic code, there is something that allows members to more accurately” read” the subtle nuances of body language among fellow breed members.
TZU TIP
Physical differences between different breeds may throw the level of comprehension off at times (for example, a dog with prick ears may have a harder time understanding a dog with folded ears thinking that the upright ears are a sign of aggression. A dog with a docked tail may be confused by a dog with a full tail) but for the most part, unless a dog is socially inept, he can understand not only the basics of what another dog is communicating, but the nuances as well.
Hand Signals
Dogs are adept at watching and interpreting body language, which can be used to the trainer’s advantage. Often it is easier to teach a dog a hand signal for a desired behavior than it is to attach a word to it. One reason is that when you give a command, such as sit, you may unintentionally say it in many ways.
“Sit,” spoken in a soft voice could mean “Please sit.”
“Sit” said with a little more authority could mean “Sit now.”
Sit spoken with a bit of exasperation could be interpreted as, “I am so tired of you pacing the floor. You’ve got to sit before you drive me crazy.”
“Sit” said in a cautionary tone might mean, “If you don’t sit right now you are going to be in so much trouble.”
And, “SIT!” when shouted could be taken to mean, “You are in big trouble!”
See how confused a dog can become with the multiple nuances of one simple word? And that’s just one word from one person. If a dog lives in a house with other adults or children, imagine how many variations of sit the dog now must understand!
Contrast the variety of meanings of the spoken sit with a simple hand signal, such as a flat-handed, palms up motion. The hand signal is consistent; there’s no difference in intonations. It is also consistent from person to person. A small child can give the same hand signal as an adult, as can a neighbor, and the dog recognizes the signal as the same from person to person.
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