I started teaching 2 new obedience classes last week. All in all about 20 new students between the two classes. We have a good mixture of dogs in the class....everything from an English Mastiff and German Shepherds to papillions and little wire haired dachshunds. My emphasis will always be on fair and consistent training with dogs. If you show your dog repeatedly exactly what you expect until you are very sure that they know what to do, then it is fair to hold them to account for failing to be obedient. Corrections do not need to be violent or mean spirited but they do need to fair and consistent. Dogs learn very well from informative negative reinforcement...the key being informative. They need to understand the exercise well enough so that the correction when issued actually teaches the dog to improve it's attention and to avoid the correction in the future. A negatively reinforced behaviour stands up very well and needs few reminders later on.
I feel strongly that in group classes a greater number of students are actually better able to understand this concept than many other types of dog training.
I base my training methods on Koehler method but have tempered it to be more like the Monks of New Skete. Their books and DVDs are excellent resource guides for anyone interested in learning more about dog training and I am a huge fan of their methods. I find it to be fair and kind to the dogs and yet very no nonsense in the approach. It is also very simple and easy to understand.
There are also huge benefits to using food in dog training but I feel that it is better left to competition dogs and trainers that have more experience with it's use. The over use of food in training can produce it's own set of problems including dogs that practice resource guarding their owners. This is a pretty easy problem to develop in a dog and most people are ill prepared to deal with it or even recognise the problem. However if a clicker trainer program is phased in at the end of a correction based program, I believe that this is a very sturdy and solid experience for all competition dogs and pet dogs in particular.
Think of your relationship with your dogs as that of a benevolent boss. This is your favorite person to work with. You know that you have to do your job but your boss makes working with him/her so pleasant that you can never say no. These bosses are usually fair and consistent in nature.....and who would not want to work for them.

Effective Dog Training?

I took my first obedience class when I was about 12 years old. The dog was a standard smooth intact dachshund and the method of choice way back then was with a choke collar and a leash. We never even considered food.
My parents wanted a well trained dog and since I was a dog crazy kid they figured that I was the perfect choice to train our family pet. It was a perfect experience for me and my dog.
That dog lived to be about 15 years old and was a perfectly well behaved dog for his entire life. I didn't know it way back then but he could have even competed in obedience trials ....he was that good. And he only had a kid for a trainer. Over the many years and many dogs, this is the method that has stood the test of time. This is the method that produced safe reliable pets.
Fast forward to today. This is the era of two dog training methods. One method employs only the use of food and the other method is virtually unchanged.
Today I train other people's dogs and I work with dogs with problem behaviours.
Almost without exception the biggest problems in dogs that I see result from treating dogs as children, using only food to train them and providing them with no structure. These are dogs who have no self control and their whole world revolves around them.
In the dog world of today, we use labels such as fur kid, fur baby, even the word baby. We call ourselves pet parents and buy clothing for them and dress them up like dolls. In short, we are demeaning them in their role as the family pet. We are denying them to be treated like a dog. They are dogs. They are dogs that were once bred to preform jobs for us. They are dogs that have a genetic map buried deep inside them.....that makes them dogs and not little humans.
So we train them like we would "like" (because this does not work with kids either) to train our kids. We bribe them constantly with food, hoping that this will make them see how much we love them. But in actual fact this is not really training....at least not for the dog. In many cases, the dog is actually training the human at the end of the leash. The leash that can never come off because the dog will never be trained to that level.
For well over two decades the positive only method has attracted well meaning dog trainers over to it's methods. And now today we have ever restrictive laws in place. We now have leash laws, so people don't even know that the dogs can be trained to walk down busy streets without a leash on. We now have breed bans, and we are now getting mandatory spay and neuter laws.
We now have dogs that are described as being a "reactive" dog. This is a fairly new term and is offered up like a medical diagnosis and simply means that this is a dog who is either dog or people aggressive....perhaps both. Dogs like this were very rare years ago. But today they have become more common and usually only seen in exclusively food trained dogs. If the positive only training were so effective, then why are we seeing so many more problem behaviours in these dogs.
Dog training must be fair to dog.....I got involved in dog training because I love dogs. I truly believe in humane fair dog training. But it has to be effective dog training that is going to provide owners with a happy well behaved dog.

Dog Training Musings

Recently on a list that I am on a poster there summed up in very eloquent words my entire philosophy on dog training, in a few short paragraphs.....and like it or not it works for every single dog in the world. If you like what the dog is doing praise it or reward it and if you don't like it correct it. For some dogs this has to be ramped up and for others toned down....but essentially it is the same for every dog from the shy retiring dog to the bold self confident dog.
What makes everything unique is the trainer or the handlers ability to read the dog. So a good trainer knows exactly when to correct and when to add more help.....by simply reading the dog in front of them. They can see a soft dog needs a soft touch whereas a bolder dogs needs a firm hand.
Carefully show the dog what you want over and over and help them as necessary to do what you want. Once you have the behaviour make the dog accountable for the behaviour. The handler or trainer has to be responsible for giving consistent training and cues but that is it in a nutshell.

Training A Siberian

I took the Siberian that is here for training into the city today and walked about 3.5 kms with a friend and her Lab. We met on the way, several motorcycles, a wheelchair, numerous ducks, geese, lots of other dogs, squirrels, lots of little children and saw boats and walked on docks and past trafffic. The whole way this little man was perfectly well behaved. I was able to use the place command to get him into the car easily. He quickly sat for every stop along the way and never pulled on the leash once.

training a Siberian Husky

I am currently working with a year old Siberian Husky. When he came he was screaming constantly in the kennel and pulled like stink on the leash. I started working with him last weekend and though I normally keep a log on the dogs I have for board and train, I have been so busy with training this week that I have fallen way behind. Anyway, the husky is now learning place and he is learning to sit and wait at the door and not too rush the door. Rushing a door is a very dangerous thing for a Siberian ... even more so than most dogs because they won't stop once they are out.

This is the first entry for my blog related to my new website. It should be up and running in the next two weeks.
Tomorrow night I start my first ever nosey dogs class. I bought the scent boxes for the students yesterday so we are already to go.
I will use this site to update on classes and boarding related activities and to post pictures etc.