When looking into training your dog you will notice that there are quite a few different ways in which you can do it. Each different dog training school teaches differently, so how do you know which ways are right and which ways are wrong? Also what skills are actually needed to make you a god dog handler?
Entering your dog into one of the many local, state, national or even international obedience events is a great way to show off your dog’s talents. These events are often sponsored by breed associations, dog product companies or even marketing firms and agencies. The great thing about these events is that they are usually not limited to only registered or purebred dogs, but rather anyone can enter. Most classes or groups within the competition are either broken down by breed or breed crosses as well as size. This helps keep the competition fair and equal for all types of dogs entering the events. Children can even enter their pets and often special classes for junior handlers are offered. The cost to enter these events is usually very minimal, especially at local level events.
One of the biggest mistakes that dog owners make in training their dog or puppy is to get lazy with expectations and in working with the dog. Often it is easier to just let the behavior slide rather than addressing the problems as they occur. Ultimately this inconsistency will result in teaching the dog that they only need to do what you say when they feel like it, rather than every time you give a command.
Sporting dogs as a group are some of the most intelligent and easiest to train of all the breeds of dogs. They have been bred for generations to work closely with humans and seem to have an uncanny ability to understand just what their owner is expecting of them. The sporting breeds include the spaniels, retrievers, pointers and setters, and are often called bird dogs or gun dogs.
Small breeds of dogs including toys, miniatures and just small dogs are a unique challenge to housetrain. This is largely because as puppies they are so tiny it is hard to tell when they are actually going to the bathroom, their body positioning changes very little compared to larger breed puppies. In addition puppies have very small bladders compared to their overall body size, and miniatures and toys have such small bladders it seems that they are urinating at a high rate of frequency, although the quantity of urine produced will be very small, and often almost undetectable to humans.
While many people consider clicker training a new way to work with dogs and other animals, clicker training has actually been around for many, many years under the name “operant conditioning”. Animal trainers, behavior trainers, scientists and even therapist have been using operant training on animals and people for centuries. Operant training works on the principle of pairing a desired behavior with a positive outcome for the animal, one that is not naturally associated with the behavior itself.
