TAKE THE LEAD
DOG TRAINING
If you don't lead... your dog can't follow
Trainer Talk
When you and your dog are together, there is always training going on. If you’re not training the dog, the dog is training you.
Upcoming Appearances
TAKE THE LEAD DOG TRAINING
Blacks School House Road
Taneytown, Maryland
443-255-7814
Get the tight dog
If you are a Chihuahua, you should not get a Great Dane.
People laugh when I say this, because it conjures up a comical image. My students, however, laugh knowingly, because they have seen it, some have lived it, and they know it’s true. For many people, their dog training problems start with breed selection. We often work with owners who did not make a good choice at the outset – they get a dog from a breed that is not quite the right match for them. Not to say that it’s a bad dog, or poorly bred. Their selection may have been made because of the way it looked, how cute it was when they picked it, or because it was a favorite breed (but not necessarily the right breed for their family).
A Selection for Life
When you select a dog it becomes a member of your family circle for its lifetime. Depending upon the breed, some smaller dogs with good genes and quality care can live to 15 years, 16 years, or more. Larger breeds tend to have much shorter lifespans and may only live 10 or 12 years of age with a reasonable expectation of health and active living. Consider your own life, and probable life changes over the next ten to fifteen years - - what would you need to consider with the responsibility of dog ownership over those years?
Picking a Puppy
If you have settled on a purebred puppy, talk to at least three breeders and ask them all the same open-ended questions so that you can fairly compare their answers to make a better decision. Open-ended questions start with who, what, when, where, why, and how, so you should get detailed responses to each question. After you’ve done your own homework, talk to the breeders, ask your questions, and weigh those responses. Ask the breeder about the breed and breed traits, the puppies, the living conditions, the individual temperament and physical traits of the puppy’s sire (dad) and dam (mom), medical attention to the dam, sire, and puppies, and also about purchase terms.
Rescue – Another Chance for “Bad” Dogs
“Bad” Dogs in rescue are there primarily for two reasons. Clearly, most dogs in rescue are not there due to who they were – but due to who their owners were – and were not – for them. First, and often, the placement for the dog with its first family was not made with proper consideration of the breed vs. family lifestyle, so the dog was a poor fit for the home. Again, a little breed research and personal reflection on your family’s lifestyle goes a long way. Second, dogs in rescue are often there because they have not been trained well, if at all, and left to their own devices, wreak havoc upon their owners and their owners’ property. It’s not the dog’s fault - it always goes back to the owner/handler.Training Your Dog
Often proper and consistent training can make up for a poor fit and even for some degree of abuse or neglect from a rescued dog’s prior situation. If a dog is causing problems but is fortunate enough to have an owner willing to take the time and learn, there can be a happy ending for both owner and dog. A good trainer that has both dog training skills and people skills will consider everything - the breed of the dog, the individual dog’s temperament and personality, and the handler’s temperament and belief system to teach both the handler and dog at the same time for optimum results.