Dog Training Courses for the Best Dog
March 10th, 2009. Published under Pets and Animals. No Comments.
If you’re like most people, while growing up, your pets were a combination of your best friend and wild beast. Now that you’re a little older and are looking to get your own kids their first pet you want to make sure you have a more civilized creature. The couch getting chewed up isn’t quite as funny anymore, now that you know how much it cost. To help protect both your sanity and your home you should look into a good dog training course. There are all kinds of courses availabe, but how do you know you will get your money’s worth?
Is a dog training course really necessary and what are the benefits? For one there is the safety of your children. A properly trained dog is proportionately less likely to bite. You and your dog will be able to have more fun because you won’t be afraid to take him/her out to the local park to play catch.
You should first examine how you learn best. Are you submissive to authority figures (i.e. teachers) or do you prefer to ask why something is done a specific way. This will be important when you are reviewing possible courses, because dogs are highly attuned to emotions and if you’re uneasy, Poochie will be too.
Now that you know your training preferences, the dog breeder where you got your dog from could be one of your first stops. Most established breeders got that way by entering their dogs into shows to proof the pedigree. So this is going to be a person who knows what they are talking about. Build a rapport and you may even learn some of their personal secrets.
An often overlooked den of information is the humane society, but the staff and volunteers who care for the animals there do so for genuine love of animals. They spend day after day working to turn the meanest animals into docile pets deserving of a good home. It stands to reason then, that they may have learned more than a few tricks in their tenure. Another reason to visit the shelter is that they often offer discounted training courses.
You can visit dog parks, or other locales that dog owners and their charges frequent. Watch for well-behaved dogs and approach the owner. Ask how they went about training their dogs. The answers you receive this way may be quite different from the breeder’s and that will help you to tailor your experience to you and your dog.
For the over-worked, or just for the sake of comfort you might want to forego a dog school all together in favor of books or videos. The options there are almost endless, so be careful and read reviews. Make sure you take your time with this method and you’ll do fine.