April 22, 2008 by Bob.

Well, I am now going to expose you to traditional dog training, no frills.

Yes, that’s right. Correct! (no pun intended). Dog training as it is presented to the public, by and large, is comprised mostly of gimmicks and fads and buzz words and a lot of other crap that does not really equate to actual dog training.

To backtrack a bit, and by way of example, my son and his wife were over one weekend and she had mentioned a conversation she had with one of her friends, where the friend had to cut things short because she needed to go ‘dog whisper’ her pet. WTF? Now it’s a verb? When I stopped laughing, I simply said, ‘your friend is an idiot.’ Everyone agreed and we settled down to watch the Miami Dolphins lose another game.

Okay, so, my point here is that the current pup psychology (okay, enough with the puns) of dog training has trickled down to the common denominator of using Cesar Millan’s particular brand of behavior mod as a different part of speech, without once trying to understand what the guy is actually doing when he corrects some crazy woman’s peekapoo out of biting her ankles.

I mean, dog training has become a multi billion dollar industry. Just go to a ‘pet superstore’ and you can see and hear the dog clickers being used by those poor souls who actually pay for obedience lessons at one of these places. Walk down the aisles and you will be overwhelmed with all of the training aids, toys, reward systems, etc.

Then stop at your local bookstore and you’ll see a healthy row of books espousing this and that training method that will enable you to speak to your dog. Or if you simply pay twenty five bucks, some self proclaimed dog training genius will tell you that you need to become the pack leader and so on. I’m getting exhausted just thinking about all of the pages and pages of bulls##t that have been generated in the name of dog training.

Now, I am not a stranger to the world of dogs and I am certainly not a stranger to training dogs. I own a twelve dog kennel and have been doing this for over ten years, pretty much full time. I have owned dogs all of my life. I belong to two dog training clubs and I have seen it all, believe me. I have paid a lot of money out to dog trainers, both good and bad. Consider me the common man’s dog training quasi-expert. With that said, and with a 100% disclaimer on the results that you may or may not receive from this article, I will give you the secrets to successful dog training, right here in this article, for free.

  1. First, if you are NOT mentally, spiritually and physically capable of correcting your dog at any one time in his lifetime, then you really should reconsider your choice of species and get a GOLDFISH.

  2. Correcting a dog consists of initially showing a dog what you want him to do and then, when he fails to follow the command, somehow showing the animal that he has done something wrong. Right then, not two hours later.

  3. Correction collars are not used for decoration as a necklace, LIKE MR. T. Factually, if you leave a choke collar on your dog and he gets it hung up on the hose bib, you will be buying one of those doggie headstones as his next toy.

  4. How about starting things off by socializing your dog? Socializing is the most important training you can and must give your pup from eight weeks until the day he dies. Take him everywhere and have him look at, listen to and travel to all points on the planet and you will have done most of the work. Ninety percent of the problems people have with their dogs, regardless of breed, has to do with improper socialization.

  5. Here’s the truth. Dog training as a concept is simple. It’s the actual doing that takes work. Just like all of those weight loss diets, pills, etc that don’t include actually burn off the fat. You cannot lose weight taking pills. Just ask the 750 lb man, who is on after the Dog Whisperer on the NGC. Speaking of whom, stop watching ‘The Dog Whisperer’ because Cesar will never show you all of the correcting he had to do on the poor dogs he features on his show. He is good at what he DOES, not at what he TELLS his baffled guests, unless you think giving them more Eastern philosophy than the Dalai Lama even knows, to be useful to dog training. Use that time to actually train your own dog instead of being a spectator. Come on. Do you really think that the ‘people’ he has on his show actually change THEIR BEHAVIOR for more than ten minutes after Cesar pulls out of their driveway?

  6. Okay, figure out what you want the dog to do. Like ‘Sit’ or ‘Stay’,etc. Make it into a customized drill, like an exercise and break down the actions that you need to do, in baby steps, to get your dog to comply. If you cannot figure out a simple exercise to do with your dog to get him to sit, you need to get out of the dog hobby thing and work with snakes (or the goldfish). They are easy to train. Seriously, the technique that you use is not as important as your timing in rewarding and correcting. You just want to get the dog to sit.

  7. Start the exercise by giving the command and urging him to comply, gently and with food or a toy, reward the dog when it complies with the command. Be patient and don’t be a frustrated with the dog. Just work with him and he will get it. Trust me. It doesn’t happen in one or two commands. And, just like people, some dogs are smarter than others. Hope your dog is smart and that you are smarter. If you cannot catch your dog and get him to calm down for a second in order to train him, then you should read point number one again.

  8. Do that one command about eight thousand times. No, really, about a thousand ought to do it. There is no secret here. Just do the damn exercise with him over and over and over, every day, until he gets it. Do you really think that dogs are people in dog suits? If you do, go to the PETA web site and forget about training your dog.

  9. Once the dog has gotten that command, continue giving it, correcting as needed, correcting with a bit more force as needed to keep the dog compliant. It’s a dog, and I know he is your best friend, but come on, man, you need to deal with him so that he is compliant. I am not talking about being cruel to a dog. No. I am talking about a quick, short correction with either a chain collar or prong collar or slip lead, and/or the word ‘no’, followed by the command and when compliant, the reward. Big time reward, lots of hugs and kisses and all of that. Really let him know he did the right thing.

10. Then go onto the next thing you want your dog to learn.

11. If you are the type of person who thinks that the above is harsh or cruel and insists on using the same psychobabble that you used on your own disobedient children who are smoking dope and getting even stupider behind your backs, then go ahead. If it didn’t work on your kids, it won’t work on a dog.

Thank you!

Bob

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April 22, 2008 by Bob.

Now that I have your attention, here are some notes on Training your Rottweiler:

Well, first of all, this is a touchy subject, mostly because people are sometimes sensitive and defensive about the training methods they use on their pup or adult dog. You know, they only use the clicker and if you use something different on  your dog, god forbid, you are an idiot. Stuff like that. Now, I’m not saying clicker training sucks, but it’s not for everybody. What I am saying is that ultimately, you are the one who is responsible for training your dog. Not the girl at Petsmart, or the guy who claims that you need to pay him 600 bucks for the privelege of watching him heel your dog in a circle in your back yard.

Do you want to know the best way to train your dog? Well, first, hang out with other people who own dogs and who have trained their dogs in obedience. Watch what they do. Ask questions. See what works for your dog before you embark on some gimmick or fad.You can either join a local obedience club or just hang out with friends. Audit a dog training class and see if it’s what you want before you shell out the dough. You get the idea.

You should also read books and watch videos. Lots of them. YouTube is filled with dog training vids. Just watch how handlers handle dogs. You will learn a lot just from watching that.Go to the bookstore and start reading a dog training book. If it inspires you to train your dog, maybe buy it and read all of it, using what you can. Read different books by different authors, so you develop a solid
overview on the subject.

Go with your dog to visit an obedience or agility event in your area. Again, watch what is going on with the dogs and handlers. Don’t just stand around and socialize with the people. Watch and listen and you will learn more in an hour than you would have by paying some schmuck 200 bucks to tell you that your dog is passive-aggressive and needs Prozac.

Remember, dogs are dogs, not humans. Please keep that in mind when you train your dog. If you cannot get the distinction between humans and dogs, you cannot train dogs, period.

Most of all, be patient. I know most people expect a dog to train itself, much less by them, the handler. The truth is, it takes months and years to fully train a dog to a high level and the training never, ever stops. So, please, be patient and do plenty of repetitions, or else you will hang your dog up on an exercise by not doing it until he or she really gets it.

My next post will give you a few actual, specific training tips. Hope it helps!!

Bob

ps thanks to Jennifer in Jersey for bugging me to write this post!

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