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What's the point of living with a dog , if you don't have a strong, loving relationship with one another?

The relationship that you have with your dog forms the foundation for all dog training. If your dog enjoys spending time with you, it's going to be much, much easier to modify and redirect their behavior. 

Developing a relationship with your dog is something that some people do easily and naturally, but on this page we're going to talk explicitly about the three most important things you can do to improve and maintain your relationship with your dog.

And, as with many aspects of dog training, these tips are just as helpful for dealing with other people. If you want to change someone's behavior, you'll be most successful if you start with a strong relationship.

Tip #1: Handfeed Your Dog
Food is such a wonderful way to develop and improve a relationship. Dogs love food and when you give a dog food, it gives your dog a reason to like you and pay attention to you. If you put all of their food in a bowl and give them the bowl, you'll get just a fraction of the benefit that you would get compared to hand-feeding your dog a meal one or two pieces at a time. For dogs that are too fearful to take food by hand, you can start by tossing food onto the floor. After a few meals like that, most dogs will develop the confidence to take food by hand, which is already an enormous improvement.

This goes for people too! Obviously you don't need to hand-feed your kids, spouse, or co-workers, but sharing meals is a great way to form a strong and positive relationship. The quickest way to a person's heart is through their stomach!

Tip #2: Talk to Your Dog
Your dog may not understand all the words you use, but dogs are very good at reading tone and facial expressions to determine how you are feeling when you talk to them. Letting your dog know how you are feeling about how they are acting is an essential part of training. Just make sure you are praising them far more than reprimanding them. After all, all dogs are good the vast majority of the time, and all dogs deserve heaps of praise and positive attention. Pair this praise with hand-feeding and your dog will be even more eager to listen to you when you talk to them.

Again, this is just as important for people. Talk to people and when you do, make sure you spend much more time praising and talking positively than you do criticizing or being negative. Very people are eager to hear unsolicited advice or feedback from strangers or people they don't have a good relationship with, but if you praise someone often enough, they might actually listen to you when you have the occasional criticism or suggestion.

Tip #3: Play with Your Dog
No offense, but if you're like most people you are pretty boring most of the time. Most dogs love to play, they love excitement, movement, energy, silliness and fun. Playing with your dog is such a wonderful way to get your dog to enjoy spending time with you and the more you play with your dog the easier it will be to get their attention and reinforce good behaviors with an activity they really enjoy. Different dogs prefer different types of play, so find what your dog enjoys and find a way to give it to your dog.

And of course, this works great with people too. If you want to improve your relationship with someone, find out what they like to do and try to find a way to share that enjoyable experience with them. It's a wonderful way to improve a relationship and it's usually a lot of FUN!

If you regularly hand-feed your dog, talk to (and especially praise) your dog, and play with your dog, you'll find that your dog will pay much more attention to you and you'll be much better equipped to train your dog and modify or redirect their behavior. Your dog will be eager to spend time with you and do what you want so that you'll be happy and eager to spend time with them. And each of these activities can be used in training to reinforce your dog for their food behavior.