Dog Obedience and Training
As one of the thousands of dog trainers in Canada, over the years I have found that if two trainers are in the same room, they could never agree on the simplest dog training subjects. The fact is that the only important thing to take into considerations is the dog. If you are truly good at what you do as a trainer, keeping an open mind is most important in training along with the art of manipulating the dog into being consistent in their performance.
There are trainers that only believe in compulsion, if it works for them that’s fine, but there are different methods of achieving what you are striving for, like food, or a toy reward, with some compulsion or no compulsion. There are not a lot of dogs that respond too long-term concentration on just praise and no physical reward. There are some areas in dog training that you can’t use compulsion – drug dogs, bomb dogs and mine dogs, in general, detection dogs, this will only cause problems. For example they could easily be lying to you because of stress or pressure you have to put on them.
Some inherit qualities I look for in choosing a dog for detection is – temperament, hunt drive with obsession to retrieve, and I use a toy to motivate the dog to work consistently. No compulsion at all. Dog obedience in the beginning is non existent.
There are little things I look for when testing a candidate for training. The dog that runs out to pick up the ball and runs past it and returns carefully picking it up might indicate to me that he thinks too much, not a dog I like to train. The higher drive dog that scoops the ball up along with grass in his mouth, is so focused on his toy, that this would be the kind of dog I look for. With this kind of intensity I can overcome any problems that might develop in the course of training.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago there were not a lot of high drive dogs around. We had to train detection from force retrieve, then turn it into fun. We don’t have to do this anymore unless your are competing with your dog in competition and you are having problems.
Many years ago I had the pleasure of attending a Seminar in Regina Saskatchewan. There at this time was a top trainer and author of many books on training methods. The speaker made a statement that all dogs must be force trained to retrieve. He was on stage with chickens, rabbits, dogs and cats in cages, and asked for someone from the audience to come up and he would demonstrate how the animals would distract a dog that had no force retrieving. A K9 Police Officer from the audience provided his Shepherd for the demonstration, but also said that his dog was a consistent retriever. The speaker looked annoyed and made a comment that he didn’t know what he was talking about. The Shepherd, three out of three times consistently retrieved, in the maze of animals without fail. The speaker was lost for words.
Never underestimate another trainer or their dog. Remember with every well-trained dog, there is a good trainer who learned to adjust to the individual animal.
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