Sunday, 15 July 2007

Dog Training


"Sit" No, I said "Sit!" not "S*IT!"

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Dog training is the process of teaching a dog to exhibit certain desired dog behavior in specific circumstances. Training your dog should absolutely be a top priority. Fundamentally, dog training and dog behavior are about communication. The goal of dog training is to build a bond between pet and family and to enjoy the process. Dog training should ALWAYS be fun for your dog, so if you or your dog begin to get tired take a break and come back to it later.

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Obedience, herding, agility, tracking, retrieving, hunting, guard, and schutzhund are common areas of dog training. Training social skills is a continuous process. Training starts the moment your pup comes home. Waiting until the puppy is older and has already learned undesirable habits makes the training much more challenging. All dog training must be founded upon educating the dog, which is, developing instincts and drawing out accidental and acquired habits. Bribery can also be a great dog training method. In dog training, the term "bribery" means that the dog is aware of the presence of the reward before he is asked to complete the command.

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Don’t be disheartened if it seems you are not getting anywhere with your dog training, because it generally takes us longer to learn how to train our dogs than it does for our dogs to be trained. The hardest part of training is communicating with the dog in a humane way that he understands. The emotional state of the dog is an important consideration in directing the training, as a dog that is stressed or distracted will not learn efficiently. Failure to reward after the reward marker diminishes the value of the reward marker and makes training more difficult.

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Most training revolves around giving the dog consequences for his behavior, in the hope of influencing the behavior the dog will exhibit in the future. Most modern trainers say that they use "positive training methods", which is a different meaning of the word "positive" from that in operant conditioning. “Positive training methods" generally means preferring the use of reward-based training to increase good behavior to that of physical punishment to decrease bad behavior. The goal is to produce a dog that will perform even on occasions that the handler has no reward to offer, since the dog's training has taught him that the handler may have a reward even if the dog cannot see it.

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Electronic dog training collars are useful tools that do no harm your pet. As is often the case, these dog training shock collars can be used for various training regimens, including but not limited to, hunting exercises, agility training, pet containment, anti-barking and more. Although shock collars are not dangerous to dogs, you should always use prudent judgment in implementing any dog-training program. There is a considerable portion of dog training, which is actually thinly disguised abuse. Although dog training can be hard at times, it’s important that you remember to keep things positive for you and your dog at all times.


5 comments:

lorenzothellama said...

Are you a professional dog trainer?

We have a border collie bitch who is nearly two, Badger. She is a delight. She is a dog who just wants to please and be everyone's friend. I have to put her on her lead if I see horses as she wants to go and play with them and I always been frightened in case the horse spooks and upsets the rider. In fact she will play with anything that moves.

Scaredy was very indignant when we first got her, now he treats her with contempt but sometimes allows her to chase him across the garden and if in a good mood will chase her back.

I saw an advertisment for 'healthy, happy puppies' in the Farmer's Gardian and felt instinctly that one was for us. She came from an organic farm in Lancashire that had an incredibly happy atmosphere. None of the adult dogs was chained and they came racing round the car, tails wagging, no barking, when we pulled into the yard. All the cows knew their names and came when called. They even had a boar as well as a couple of sows with litters of piglets.

I bonded with Badger as soon as I picked her up. She is a little sod though. We didn't give her much formal training because, as I said, she just wants to please. Her only blind spot is she has absolutely no traffic sense. She will sit obediently at the kerb, but if she saw a cat, dog, horse, squirrel etc. to play with she would just run to them. For that reason she is always on the lead on roads.

Our last dog, another border collie called Meg was a wonderful dog for me. One of my daughters took her to doggy training classes and she used to win cups. I cried buckets when she died just before her 17th birthday.

Nice to have a so-called 'sensible' chat to you.

Love Lorenzo.

lorenzothellama said...

ps What does schutzhund mean?

lorenzothellama said...

pps. I once had to clout Meg when she was about five months old for chasing a sheep. She never did it again and I only had to say 'sheep' and she would come back and walk to heel.

Badger eyes them up hungrily when we pass them. I keep her on a lead if we are in farmer's fields but if we are on the moors I just keep yelling 'back' and she trots beside me, watching the sheep all the time. The herding instinct is so strong in them.

Martin Stickland said...

No sorry lory, I am not a dog trainer but I do love the little mutts.

Sorry to hear about you dog, I cried like a baby (but do not tell the lads!) when I took my 15 year old dog to the vets and just came back with his collar, my wife wanted to know where he was and I had to explain that the vet recommended that we put him down straight away due to internal bleeding.

Your collie sounds just like mine!

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