Bulanda Susan - K9 obedience training: teaching pets and working dogs to be reliable and free-thinking

Your dog depends on you for his safety and well-being, and the best way to ensure this is through good communication that is grounded in solid obedience training. K9 Obedience Training: Teaching Pets and Working Dogs to Be Reliable and Free-Thinking is aimed at providing the best foundational obedience training for future working dogs and their handlers who will go beyond basic obedience to specialized training. That being said, it is also the best guide for domestic dogs (whether they be puppies or wise, old veterans) and their dog-loving owners, and for anyone considering getting a dog. Sues knowledge, skills, and internationally recognized expertise come from years of training and handling working dogs, including search and rescue (SAR) dogs, sled dogs, and problem dogs (and people). Her philosophy is based on communication and a positive training methodthat is, a method that focuses on positive reinforcement rather than negative, punishment-based communication. What makes K9 Obedience Training special is that it explains what to do, what not to do, and, most importantly, why.

Sue details how to communicate with your dog and lays out the necessary steps for successful obedience training. The book explains, for example, that you must choose specific words for specific commandsand commit to their consistent usebefore trying to teach them to your dog. She further explains teaching tools, offers excellent tips and exercises, and discusses some of the differences between these and other dog training methods. She outlines common mistakes and basic issues that dog trainers, handlers, and owners make, and how to avoid them. Whats more, Sue lets us in on how ours dogs themselves think about and understand training.

It is critical to understand that you have a thinking dogso you ought to be a thinking owner. You must clearly understand the behaviors and skills that you want to train before you teach them to your dog, and you must think about how your dog thinks in order to avoid miscommunication. Human language is a foreign language to a dog. They dont understand it the way we do; rather, for a dog that has learned to recognize a human word, that word will be linked to a very specific action or object, and only to that action or object. Your dog will not understand you if you use synonyms, or if you use a particular word in a new way that the dog has not been trained to understandand this can be frustrating for both you and your dog. Try putting yourself in your dogs position:

O WNER : Bruno!! How many times have I told you to STAY OFF the COUCH!? This is expensive furniture!

B RUNO : Waithow do I STAY and OFF at the same time? Maybe I can OFF my back feet to the floor and STAY my front feet on the Heyyou said STAY OFF the COUCH. Im on the comfy CHAIR. You never said, Chair. By the way, what is furniture?

It is, therefore, very important to learn to think like your dog: work on one command at a time and show your dog the connection between the command word and the desired action. But it is also important to note that, although dogs learn to understand human words in very precise ways, context does matterand we should always remember that although dogs understand our language differently than we do, they are not stupid. Far from it! Dogs are entirely capable of learning different sets of rules for different situations and with different people. They can learn just about anything as long as you can show them clearly what you want, one step at a time.

I dont just write this out of hearsay, but out of experience. I completed Sues Canine Training and Management program at college, and now work as a dog sitter at what I call dog camp. Using Sues method, I have trained the dogs that I watch to respond to rules and commands that may be totally different than those established at their homes. Upon arriving at camp, they race through the house, sniffing everything at nose level to make sure nothing has changed. Then they check the toy basket, make sure the camp cats are around, and jump up on the couch or bed, wriggling around until they are stretched out, belly up (something many are not allowed to do at home, although they may try it once or twice after camp to see if home rules have changed to match camp rules!). At camp, the dogs know that