Obedience training for dogs is the same as pre-school for children, or higher education in some cases. It teaches them (both children and dogs) to sit, stay, share, pay attention, how to socialize, and to ask to go potty (or at least not have an accident). Taking on the responsibility of an animal is a huge undertaking and can be stressful if you are not prepared. If you know the basics of what you need to do ahead of time then it will be an easier transition for both of you until the puppy training can begin. I can speak from experience on how stressful an untrained animal can be. My boyfriend procrastinated on getting Angel and Demon into obedience classes due to his own schedule and it was a constant battle trying to get them to behave. Obedience training establishes rules for the dog. If they do not know what they should and should not do inside/outside/around company/around other dogs then they will keep doing what they are doing and that can potentially be dangerous. There are several young children in our families so getting the dogs trained and to learn how to be "gentle" (calm and not jumping up on people) was very important to us. Also learning to share their bones and toys was important also. We plan on having children someday and kids tend to take things from others (such as a bone from the dogs) so they need to know its ok to share and they will get it back. HOWEVER- children need to also know not to torment or tease the dog. Pulling on their tail, purposely taking away the dogs toys/bones and not returning, and other intentionally mean behaviors are unacceptable and should not be tolerated. Dogs are trained to behave and I do not blame them if they lash out in self defense, the child should have been raised better than to treat an animal cruelly.
The ASPCA Complete Dog Training Manual by Bruce Fogel, DVM looks to be very informative and covers a wide variety of situations that may come up in training and throughout maturity. According to nylabone.com there are 6 Principles of Successful Training: Be Consisten, Be Concise, Be Generous, Be Smart, Be Prepared, Be Happy. For more details on these principles feel free to migrate to nylabone.com. Also remember that training your dog at a young age helps them to adjust to your lifestyle and schedule, making it one less thing you need to stress about in your day. Just remember that dogs forget just like adults too, so refreshing their memories with their obedience training is ok to do as they get older.
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| Angel was not to thrilled to wear her graduation cap. |
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| Demon graduated with honors :) Which basically means he was a huge suck up to the teacher for treats... |
Good Luck and have fun :)
Resources:
http://www.nylabone.com/dog-101/training-behaviors/dog-training-tips/
