The Importance of Training Your Dog

More pets are put down because of behavior problems than die from diseases and accidents combined. Most are not bad dogs; just guilty of being untrained. Often untrained adult dogs will develop either behavioral problems or mannerisms too difficult to live with once they're adults. Your pet's training is your responsibility. An out of control dog usually stems from not only the pets lack of training but also from the owners lack of education and understanding. Disobedience and unwanted behaviors are often indirectly and unknowingly trained into pets.
  Subjecting dogs to instructions and commands which are not fully understood does not promote a well mannered and adjusted pet. Knowing what we clearly expect of our pets and how he/she fits into our pack and environment does. After training your pet we then educate you in how to maintain and understand your pet's training....this balance is key. The success of your pet's training is very much dependent on your training. That is why we offer 4 follow up visits with all our boarding/training programs.

"Owning a dog for eighteen years and then training for two does not mean you have twenty years training experience."

Their are differences in how humans and animals think and learn. People think and learn in words...dogs think and learn in pictures.
Example: The situation where a pet from time to time tips over the trash can and spreads trash all over the kitchen floor.The owner will usually explain that their pet is aware this is wrong because when the owner walks in the house their pet will run away refusing to go into the kitchen.
  What we usually find is that what the pet understands as wrong doing is not tipping over the trash can and spreading garbage throughout the kitchen floor but rather the site of trash on the kitchen floor. Meaning if you were to put the pet away in another room, come into the kitchen tip over the trash can and spread garbage throughout the kitchen floor yourself -the pets reaction would be the same. It is the picture of the trash being on the floor that the pet associates with something being wrong....not the fact that he did it.

"A common mistake is to relate or interpret what an animal does by humanizing the behavior."

We often forget that dogs are caught living in two different worlds...That of domestication due to man and
that of nature due to their wild counter part- which is where they came from. This advanced type of nervous system requires experienced handling to eliminate confusion and stress in training.
  Training must be fair and good judgment used on behalf of the trainer. The ability to determine when a pet should be helped because of a mistake or misunderstanding and when it should be corrected because of disobedience is a judgment only the greatest of trainers achieve. This balance is very important and greatly undervalued, most trainers do not have this capability.