I don’t have tons of time, but I will start with the most salient fact: you aren’t fast enough.
Let me repeat that: you are not fast enough. Or, if you are fast enough, you are not fast enough CONSISTENTLY.
The ONLY way that the pain you inflict computes in the dog’s head with “I did this specific thing wrong - to avoid that pain again I must avoid doing that thing again.” is if the connection is nearly instantaneous. ** Every single second** of delay between the behavior you don’t want and the punishment you inflict dramatically reduces the likelihood that the dog will make the connection you want him to make, which is “My specific behavior = negative consequence = do not behave like that” and unless you have a very exceptional dog, the connection becomes impossible at anywhere between 15 and 30 seconds.
What happens the majority of the time is confusion and generalized fear, which undermines your goal.
And that’s just the first reason.
(And I hereby dismiss anyone who tells me their dog “knows” they did wrong because when you came home and found the toilet paper torn up, your dog cowered in fear and slinked away. No, here’s what happened: you came home and saw the mess, and your dog instantly read your energy and understood your anger and became afraid because when you’ve been angry in the past, your dog got hurt. None of this means your dog made the connection between the torn toilet paper and your anger and his pain. Don’t kid yourself so you can act out your anger on your animal and make it ok.)
Stoid and Sailboat (among others) have already given fantastic advice, so I’m just popping in with a book suggestion. Anything by Ian Dunbar is wonderful, and for your situation I’d recommend Before You Get Your Puppy. Dunbar is the “godfather” of positive reinforcement training.
I’m currently reading Cesar Millan’s *Cesar’s Way *, and while I agree with him on many of his ideas about pack theory, I find his methods too aggressive. In the case of the alpha roll, I disagree with him completely about what it accomplishes. It’s an excellent way to get bit, IMO.
There are numerous times where I would come home, same as always and happy to see my dog, and she’d come up looking decidedly guilty rather than her usual enthusiastic self. Note I have NEVER hit my dog in her life…not ever, not even once. If she does bad I may express displeasure but even that is tame and rarely more than a mild verbal rebuke and let my displeasure show (which invariably with her I came never maintain for more than a minute anyway before needing to hug her). Believe me it is enough with her, she understands our displeasure immediately and it upsets her.
As soon as I would see that behavior I would know to go look for something. Thing is it could be various things. Poop in the house, a chewed shoe, toilet paper unrolled, my left over pizza eaten and so on. She was an exceptionally well behaved dog but these things happen on occasion over the years.
Point is walking in I had ZERO clue anything was amiss. I was not tipping the dog off at all. She knew she had done something she shouldn’t and acted guilty when she did so. More, she seemed able to extrapolate what a “bad” thing was. The first time she’d do “X-that-is-bad” we’d see that behavior despite our never having explicitly rebuked her for that specific action.
She was a shockingly intelligent dog though so perhaps an aberration.
I’m currently reading “The Art of Raising a Puppy” by the Monks of New Skete.
I’m in the same position as you (planning on getting a puppy in the near future) - I’ll definitely check out some of the recommendations in this thread.