Basic Dog Training

From puppy training to training the older dog.

What an amazing relationship humans have forged with dogs - or is it the other way round?  There are "dog haters" around and it is something I frankly do not understand unless an unpleasant incident with a savage dog is the cause.

Let's confine ourselves to the majority of people who are simply dotty over dogs of all shapes and sizes. 

The fact is that we can't resist the puppy but far too many people go on to spoil the dog both physically and mentally.  I do not propose going into the details of dog training as there are experts in this field who can do a far better job of it with up to the minute information.  Do bear in mind however, that when you have lost control of your dog, it is harder to recover the situation.  But, unless it is completely deranged, no dog is untrainable whatever it's age.  Literally, you can teach an old dog new tricks.  In fact there are few things more delightful than the look on your old friends face when it knows it has pleased you by performing some newly learned task.

One big no-no in training your dog!

Everyone has come accross the idiot who is conviced that volume is the key to being understood when faced with someone who does not speak or understand his language.  No matter how loud he shouts, the poor target of the tirade gets more and more confused with every increase in decibels!  Now consider the dog.  He does not understand any human language - it is just noise to him.  He understands certain commands by associating the "Noise" of that command with the action that he has learned.  He carries out the action on hearing the command because he has come to realise that it pleases you.  This of course, is good news for him as it usually means a treat of some sort.

One of the saddest sites that I see all too frequently is the small child dragging a puppy around.  Even worse is when the child - usually emulating the "exasperated adult" posture - screams at the puppy to sit.  Is it any wonder that so many dogs are nervous wrecks.  You and your dog need to learn properly from the start.

My last word on training is this.  Do not buy a choke chain!  They are cruel, can injure a dog and basically, do not address the problem.  Our first Great Dane was 20 months old when we got him and was far from the gentle giant that is spoken of.  He weighed 85Kgs, stood at over 3 feet tall at the shoulder and wanted to kill every other dog he saw!  A choke chain was at the time the only recommended training aid. 

We were at our wits end and tried everything we could.  We went to a highly thought of dog trainer who was a choke collar devotee and spent a small fortune.  When after about 6 weeks of "training" he grabbed one of her German Shepherds by the neck and started to swing it around his head like a rat, she admitted defeat.  Her advice was that as he was untrainable he should be put to sleep.  One interesting aspect of this is that he had learned to respond to vicious yanks on the choke chain, but was his normal ferocious self without!

I don't take advice easily and especially from someone who had failed so spectacularly so we started investigating ways to save his life.  There was no internet in those days so we embarked on an endless round of phone calls.  The only long term solution seemed to be to have him castrated, so that was the action we took.  When the rampant hormone levels finally diminished, we had a much calmer dog.  He was not perfect with other dogs but manageable.  He lived until he was 10 and is still sadly missed.

Nowadays, our problems would so easily have been solved with the latest techniques and all that anguish for us and the dog would have been avoided.  I do feel very passionate about this as the keeping of any pet should be a pleasure.  So often, without that little bit of knowledge, it can turn into a nightmare.