As trainers, we tend to set our expectations when we train a dog, of course the expectation vary when it comes to which type of dog. Rottweiler, good guard dog, good bite work. Doberman, good guard dog, good bite work. Sheep dogs, good work dog, good at herding. Hounds, good work dog, good at smelling. The list goes on. But are these skills usable when it comes to real life? I don't recall Malaysians using hounds to find hares as prizes of hunts, nor, sheep dogs used to herd in the cows and goats when they scatter.
Except for guard dogs, which most typical owners would need to guard their house, factory, warehouse, whatnot, most natural habits of work dogs are not trained to perfection or, even worse, ignored. I, for one, provides basic training, which covers heelwork, sit/down stays, recalls and everything we would anticipate in a normal dog to behave well, regardless of whether his a pure breed or a mongrel. The rules of training are simple, dog must listen to what owner commands. You do good, you get praised or treats; you don't, you get punishment or, for the lucky ones, ignored until you do it right. This training is quite simple for almost any owner to follow and is the basic of them all. The goal here is to have a dog that can behave well in public and is willing to listen to the owner.
Of course, even for obedience training there are quite a few levels, first you have basic (AKA Canine Good Citizen CGC in the Malaysia Kennel Association MKA), then you have Pre-Novice, Novice and Open. The levels differ where in basic levels a leash is required and higher levels do not, and of course higher levels would have higher difficulties of skills and commands. As we move higher on the levels, the expectation of obedience is higher where the dog is required to stay in a spot, even if the owner is out of sight.
Now, what about the next step? As I've mentioned, obedience training is for obedience only, which might not work for every dog. Some could be lazy, some hyper-active. Just like government schools are not for every children, obedience training might not be the best thing for your canine companion. Instead of obedience, there are other training like, Agility, Dancing With Dogs (DWD), Bitework, Guidance even Therapy. Dogs can branch out to so many types of roles, it is the handler's job to identify which.
Now still, other than what I've mentioned before, you might still find that your dogs don't like what they're doing. An example, a beagle, he might not like agility (likes to smell the ground), DWD (the ground, again), Bitework (are you kidding me?), guidance (this is mostly taken up by Retrievers or Labradors), Therapy (not suitable for all kinds of dogs just like not all humans can be therapists).
Then what's next? This is where you might need to understand your dog better, what does he like? Perhaps smelling the ground? It's annoying, I know, the dog loves everything on the ground while everything is going on above of his head. But perhaps you could utilize this? One of the exercises in high level obedience training actually uses 9 handkerchiefs, where one of them are used to wipe the handler's hand. Without the dog looking, the used handkerchief is placed with the other 8, and the dog will use his nose to pick the used handkerchief. This training will need months or years to train, but perhaps this would be one of the best ways to utilize the dogs natural instinct. Instead of forcing it to do something that it does not want to do, maybe the handler could create an exercise so that the unwanted habit is used for fun instead. The exercise could be short or long, it doesn't matter, but ultimately the handler uses the habit to make it obey.
I'm a fan of long walks, going for 5KM or 10KM walks during the weekends means letting my girls use up their week long energy for that one and a half hour. They reach home, exhausted but they enjoy it. At first, the girls would walk faster than me, cause of their high level energy in them, but after a while, they'll start to re-adjust their speed as they begin to feel tired. Now for me , key point here is to ensure that they are fully focusing on the walk, no sniffing around, no wandering off, constantly staying on my left, sit when I stop, that kind of stuff that are similar to basic obedience training, but in the real world, beside roads, buildings, cars etc. To me, it's an achievement that my girls are used to this kind of walks, as 1. They get to have different experiences during the trainings, 2. I get to show other people how as simple as walks can be used to train their dogs, creating more awareness.
Dog training is offered almost everywhere, and there are even more unique and special training methods for special dogs, you just need to research through the net and through books or magazines. It is key essential where a dog is fully trained and his energy drained, mentally or physically. A trained dog is always a better dog. Hence, you just need to spend more time with the dog, get to know him, understand him, just like you would with a child. There's no way to treat two dogs the same, just like humans. You just got to know more, and lay out a training method for him. Talk to a trainer, read, trial and error, there's no right or wrong in this, it just depends whether you want to make the move or not.
Till next time, woof!
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