Dog Training 101. Or Should That Be Owner Training 101…?
We’ve always had dogs around ever since I was a kid, and even when our family was “between dogs” I adopted next door’s Boxer dog as my own. Despite this, as a family we didnt have a clue how to correctly train a dog as long as it didn’t mess on the floor, chew up our slippers and finally came on the fifth yell of its name we thought things were just fine.
Like many dog owners I didn’t know the first thing about training a dog. Well, we think we do because the dog sits or offers us a paw when we have a treat in our hands but those are just party tricks.
Then I bought my very own dog when I got a place of my own. As she grew she changed from loveable pup into a liability. She wandered off, never came when called and turned into the Tasmanian Devil whenever anybody called around. The final straw came when she tore into the room and scrambled up to sit on the shoulders of a visitor who had come to assess me for a voluntary position. He was not a dog lover and I can still remember the look on his face now…
Trouble was, I had always treated dogs as...