Training Your Dog: A Four-Legged and Furry Series

So you want your dog to sit on command or stay or maybe even talk when asked.  But how do you go about making that happen?  And if you want a reference book how do you choose between the more than 4,000 out on the market? 

Across the span of a few columns, Four Legged and Furry will focus on these questions and dog training in general.  Feel free to submit your questions, and I'll do my best to find an answer for you. 

Prior to preparing for this column, I will admit that I never attempted to train one of my pets.  I've always had great dogs or, when I was still in Mississippi, great cows, ducks, fish and whatever else was on the farm at the time.  I've never felt a need to really train them.

Even now, with our Barnum, we've never felt a need to train him.  Barnum was adopted through a rescue league after spending his first 3 ½ years on a puppy mill.  He didn't need training when we got him.  He needed love, so that's what we did.  For the last year and a half we have loved Barnum unconditionally, and in return, he's loved us back and learned to trust us, something that would have been impossible when he first got off the van with the rescue group in May of 2009. 

So now that he's grown into a loving and trusting boy, we feel like we can work with him on some tricks.  I thought I would share our experience with you, the references we used, and hopefully it will be of some help as well.

Lesson 1:  To accomplish your goals, make them realistic.

 Knowing Barnum, that he'll be five in December and that he was abused in the past, I wanted to be realistic about my goals for him.  I certainly didn't want to put too much pressure on him too fast. 

So, we decided to start slow with the command "talk."  When we first adopted Barnum, he did not make a sound for weeks.  We did not hear him bark for months, and that was on a very rare occasion.  With that in mind, Barnum learning to "talk" was a really big deal, but it was something we felt like he could do. 

Following his learning to talk and getting comfortable with that command, we decided we would move on to the command "sit" although he seemed a little more wary of that word.

Lesson 2:  To have a great dog, be a great human.

Jon Katz books are kind of a guilty pleasure for me.  There is a lot of what Katz says that I disagree with.  His view of his own life and more than anything animals and their place in our lives is difficult for me to swallow.  With that being said, you can find several of his books lining my shelf and I've been known to read his blog. 

I'm currently reading "The Dogs of Bedlam Farm" by Katz, and while there are sections where I shake my head in disagreement with his view of animals, I couldn't help but agree with one philosophy of his own training.  He believes that if we want our dogs to be better, we must be better ourselves – controlling our tempers, our emotions, not becoming too frustrated with the dog.

Katz writes, "When there's conflict, people tend to blame the dog. 'I want him to sit; why won't he?' 'He's defiant,' we say.  'She's so dependent,' We never say, 'I don't know how to train him.' or 'I lose my temper' or 'I say too many confusing things.'"

When I set out to work with Barnum on his new tricks, I kept this in mind.  I sat down with him on the floor, looking him in the eye, so as not to intimidate him.  I praised him constantly.  I spoke to him in an encouraging voice, and I tried not to get frustrated when he didn't grasp immediately what I was saying.

So for this week, I encourage you to set some goals for your pup, and then maybe spend some time examining yourself.  What is the best way for you to approach your pet about new commands?  What are some elements of your personality that you need to work on to make sure that you are a good enough human to have a great dog?

I'll be back next week with more of the lessons I'm learning through Barnum, and I hope to hear some that you are learning as well.