DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - What's the best training advice you've ever gotten?

**sabbixsweraco** · 09-02-2012, 03:46 AM

/snip
I want my dog to work for me because she enjoys working for me, not because I'm making her work for me. I guess it's about the kind of relationship you want with your dog- do you want to be a team, or do you want to be a master with a servent? The key here is, once you create that team bond, there's no need to force yourself into the role of 'master of the universe', your dog already thinks you are.

I like when my dog accomplishes something and looks at me like "YAY look at what I did, you showed me how to do it and I did it right and you're happy so I'm happy and this is awesome!" You don't get that with force training. And to me, without that, whatever training I'm doing isn't worth it.

When I first started, I started with a much harder mentality. My mentor and boss is an older, koehler style trainer (I actually really enjoyed reading koehler's books dedicated towards each level of obedience training) so you go with what you know right. Once PR training was introduced to me, by a wonderful woman on a dog board, I started thinking along the lines quoted.

I don't mind giving a pop here or there if Hades is being a turd on a walk, but I don't need Hades to track, or air scent, or have perfectly straight fronts/arounds/swings etc. Hades life as a canine good neighbor does not require him to respond to solely verbal cues, or solely hand signals, or to perform various position behaviours from a 100 foot distance. We do it because it's fun, we can and I enjoy training my dog to be better than your average pooch.

I find relationship based training isn't for everyone, because not everyone is interested in having a two-way communication relationship with a dog. Whatever floats your boat, but it gets under my skin when people say it can't be done.

Another stolen quote in regards to dog training that I recently heard and makes me smile when people say food training doesn't result in reliable dogs, or you'll always need food to have a reliable dog, or dogs and cats never get along, or whatever "in" thing to discredit:

"Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those doing it."

09-02-2012, 03:46 AM	#40
sabbixsweraco Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 486 Senior Member	/snip I want my dog to work for me because she enjoys working for me, not because I'm making her work for me. I guess it's about the kind of relationship you want with your dog- do you want to be a team, or do you want to be a master with a servent? The key here is, once you create that team bond, there's no need to force yourself into the role of 'master of the universe', your dog already thinks you are. I like when my dog accomplishes something and looks at me like "YAY look at what I did, you showed me how to do it and I did it right and you're happy so I'm happy and this is awesome!" You don't get that with force training. And to me, without that, whatever training I'm doing isn't worth it. When I first started, I started with a much harder mentality. My mentor and boss is an older, koehler style trainer (I actually really enjoyed reading koehler's books dedicated towards each level of obedience training) so you go with what you know right. Once PR training was introduced to me, by a wonderful woman on a dog board, I started thinking along the lines quoted. I don't mind giving a pop here or there if Hades is being a turd on a walk, but I don't need Hades to track, or air scent, or have perfectly straight fronts/arounds/swings etc. Hades life as a canine good neighbor does not require him to respond to solely verbal cues, or solely hand signals, or to perform various position behaviours from a 100 foot distance. We do it because it's fun, we can and I enjoy training my dog to be better than your average pooch. I find relationship based training isn't for everyone, because not everyone is interested in having a two-way communication relationship with a dog. Whatever floats your boat, but it gets under my skin when people say it can't be done. Another stolen quote in regards to dog training that I recently heard and makes me smile when people say food training doesn't result in reliable dogs, or you'll always need food to have a reliable dog, or dogs and cats never get along, or whatever "in" thing to discredit: "Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those doing it."
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