One year ago I purchased a German Wirehaired Pointer (GWP) puppy with the goal to train him to hunt birds. My family had a Dalmatian when I was kid, but I never trained it (nor did my family for that matter). Essentially, this was to my first dog.
In one year, I have learned a tremendous amount about dog training and a little bit about myself. My pup is now performing heel, whoa, down, and recall with the best of one-year-olds. He has just been introduced to live birds and an e-collar. He is well on his way to being a great hunting companion. I hope the following will help those who have a dog or might be thinking about getting one.
If you have never owned a dog, be prepared for it to take over your life. A dog is an eight to twelve year project. Training never stops. You will be stressed, challenged, and feel like a fool. In return you will feel immense pride and experience unconditional love and loyalty. Also, let’s be honest, using one animal to hunt another animal oozes pure masculinity.
Choosing a dog
A versatile hunting dog. Fear the beard!
The first step in training a hunting dog is choosing a breed. I prefer upland hunting to duck hunting so that required a dog who points as well as retrieves. I chose a GWP primarily due to cost and availability, as there was a breeder within driving distance. I wanted to actually meet the breeder and know what I was getting.
The GWP is a “’versatile hunting dog” as defined by the North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association. A versatile dog is a “dog that is bred and trained to dependably hunt and point game, to retrieve on both land and water, and to track wounded game on both land and water.”
You can’t discuss choosing a dog without addressing the nature-nurture debate. Is a $3,000 Italian Spinone Italiano from a line of test champions going to hunt better than an $800 dog with no lineage? Having observed other dogs in basic obedience courses and my current group hunting OB class, most of whom have the lineage and price tag, I’d argue it doesn’t. A high end dog may have a genetic advantage that may show after the dog is at a high level of training, but basic obedience up to most basic hunting skills, e.g. whoa, heel and fetch, is all about the trainer.
A dog is a major commitment
You must work with your dog every day. No excuses.
A puppy requires a lot of time. The standard rule is that a puppy has to go potty every number of hours as his age in month. So an eight-week puppy (the standard age for taking a pup home) has to be let out every two hours, even at night. Thankfully, I had a job where I could keep him in my truck and let him out every few hours. Still, the first two weeks with my dog I was so stressed and tired that I had lost my appetite.
Four to twelve (some say sixteen) weeks are very important in a puppy’s development. This is their “socialization period.” Up to eight weeks should be spent with the litter, where they learn play biting and other pack socialization skills. After that, the more time you spend with the dog in this time and introduce him to other dogs the better.
Around the time I got my pup, I got a new job offer and was able to take six weeks of “fun-employment.” Thus, in those critical weeks, I was there almost 24/7 playing and working on obedience. I feel that having built that a foundation of trust and obedience has served me well now that I am teaching him more complex commands.
Misbehaved dogs are the result of unpreparedness, laziness, and insecurity. Unpreparedness and laziness is the easiest to solve. Read and watch everything you can. I study training books and DVDs daily. I joined local hunting dog chapters, built a training table and training aids, and started following internet forums.
I have even watched every Cesar Millan episode available on Netflix. All dogs are different and there is no right way to train. It’s your duty and responsibility as an owner to analyze your dog and adjust your methods accordingly. Do not expect a dog to magically behave. Any well-trained dog you see is the result of hours upon hours of working with it.
Good trainers raise good dogs, bad trainers raise bad dogs
Your typical dog owner being taken for a walk.
One of the things I have witnessed since I started training my pup is how bad people are with dogs. I basically gained a judgmental sixth sense of dog handling. My spider sense tingles when I see two leads on a dog or muzzle. I recommend doing an OB class of any sort with any new dog, if only to see how other people handle their dogs. The results will shock you. Seeing people with large breeds like Rottweilers who have absolutely no control over their dog is sadly the norm.
Insecurity of the trainer is the other training mistake. Cesar is correct when he says that properly training a dog requires boundaries, rules, and limitations. Sound familiar? Most people lack these in their own lives, so it is no wonder that their dog does not have any.
Because I took training seriously, I have noticed that I am much more disciplined than before. I go to bed earlier so I am awake before work and can get the pup at least 45 minutes of off-leash exercise before work. He gets 20 minutes of training at least once a day, if not both morning and night sessions. I have sit-downs with my girlfriend to explain the latest training step and to ensure we are both using proper commands.
Training a dog quickly teaches you patience and how to hold frame. They will test you physically and mentally. They will push boundaries and try to dominate you. My pup knows that “bed” means go lay on the big circular dog bed in the corner and he will. Then his front paws start creeping further and further off until just his butt is on the bed. It’s undeniably cute and impressively smart, but it’s also directly disobeying my command and cannot be tolerated.
You must have dedication and persistence. You will make mistakes. You will miss corrections. You will correct them at the wrong time. You will let a dog get you upset. You cannot let these mistakes phase you and must continue on. One mistake won’t tank your training for the day or irreparably harm the dog.
Conclusion
Owning and training a hunting dog is the most rewarding task I have ever taken on. It beats graduating law school, my job, and even my mentoring. It has given me a new appreciation for what is really important. When given the choice, I will choose to spend time working with my pup. If you are looking for a rewarding challenge, I cannot recommend dog training enough.
Your future reward.
Read More: Reflections On My Freshman Year Of College
I’ve never hunted but have had dogs more than half my years. I happen to come across a black cocker spaniel in 1990 and have been hooked since. Cockers are upland game bird dogs and will be great family pets.
My black cocker was so good I had her on city streets without a leash and she would always follow my commands. They break your heart when they leave.
“They break your heart when they leave.”
I have an older one and I’m terrified.
Your last charge is to let them go easy. Long enough for a good life as a dog. Not too long though to avoid suffering. Dogs will go through great sacrifice to avoid showing weakness or pain.
My second cocker is 11 this month and I still marvel at her spirit.
i guess there is a parallel to women here. men need to assert dominance or they will be pulled along instead of doing the pulling
The problem is not individual women. It is feminist indoctrination. I go to a lot of agricultural things. I have noticed that there are a lot of truly happy couples in small farming. And good women at farm tour events. . SOmething about coopeeration in nature. Men and women start specializing pretty quickly when working on small farms. And gain mutual respect. For example, he grows and plows, she cooks and cans the veggies. The city uproots people from things in nature that incline men and women to work things out.
It gladdened my heart to see the young happy couple that sold me the chickens last week-end. You could see in an instant that they lived and breathed for each other. And cooperated so well. He was a common sense dude, she was also beautiful, skillful, hard working, practical.
It is amazing how turning my lawn into a micro farm brought my wife and me together. She loves to gain quality, homegrown ingredients I raise and she turns them into fine cuisine on a daily basis. She does a little lite gardening but it’s mostly me. She is the chef, but I am a decent pinch hitter cook myself. I look forward to coming home every day. On the way home from work, I am thinking about dinner.
With the damn gender studies curriculum, rather than the nuances of spices and sauces and true refinement, most young women are learning all the nuances of how they are oppressed. Gain no real skills. Just how to make their bitching sound scientific because they have attached phony data. Need to get away from academia and back to the land if we are going to save the functioning family.
We already have a first class garden and even chickens. But lack a well heeled canine. A smart, well trained dog is highly useful and is a pinnacle acheivement of refined, civilized outdoor life. Kind of like welll prepared cuisine, a piano and a fine piano player is for the indoors.
Every country squire needs a fine hound, elegant capable wife, and a smart dog.
The dog is a like a symbol of the estate.
I just think city culture is sick.
City messes up women and dudes. There is a lot of beauty in nature. Flowers, animal. My favorite is a well tended garden that I struggled to maintain.
Uproot an individual and put them in an office. Only natural thing to contemplate is a woman’s rear end.
It is normal that men become beggars petitioning for sex and women sluts. It is no coincidence we had the show “Sex and the City”.
People need a more wholistic lifestyle. Becoming embedded in nature is necessary for balance and harmony.
Absolutely. Unfortunately you’ll even get manosphere dudes who will mock any suggestion to leave the festering deep blue cities. “Duh high quality puzzy is here in NYC lzzzlollzzllzzz!” and crap like that. Kind of absurd if you ask me, as “high quality pussy” doesn’t demand that you act like an idiot without a shred of integrity or self worth in order to bag it, and high quality pussy is not passed around by 200 men before it “settles down” like big city “girls”.
Unfortunately the perception of anywhere but “big city!” is “you’re all inbred hillbillies”. Which I guess is fine, as it more likely than not stops the sickness from spreading to flyover country at an alarming and uncontrollable rate.
I’ve been in a city for a couple of years now and it’s got pluses and minuses. There are things here that I couldn’t get out in the country. That being said I wouldn’t raise my children here.
I’ve lived in a couple of big cities (San Francisco, Philadelphia). What I can’t get out in the country that I can in a city has really come to mean nothing to me. So I can’t get authentic Mu Shu pork at 4 am in the morning if I live in Smalltown, Ohio, big hairy deal. It just isn’t worth it to me.
Yeah I can cook well so that’s not so much the issue. I’m working on remodeling some very complex upscale residences and this is carpentry experience I will get in few places. Also my friends and I are starting our own fitness gym for parkour and the market for that isn’t in a small town.
That’s fair. I wasn’t ranting against all big city types, but rather the ones who are “big city or nothing!” and who consider flyover country some foreign nation that they’d prefer to never step foot in. If you have experience in both and find more opportunity in a big city right now, more power to you.
Me, I’ll stick with this and be content, at least until I can move further out west to Wyoming.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/loa.images/inv/1014337/1014337-1108301350251147-p.JPG
http://www.downtownjohnstown.org/uploads/1/9/5/1/1951406/9128304_orig.jpg
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/30/ee/74/30ee746545e01b4adf7a2c25d75412f0.jpg
We can also discharge firearms for hobby, sport and reason out in the countryside without having the disapproval from the insecure downtown champagne socialists.
That was my weekend! Me and a few buddies with some SKS’s, shotguns, and open air. Beauty.
That’s always a good thing. Though out here in Ohio even the city types hit the ranges. Apparently word hasn’t quite reached us that Guns Iz Eeebilz. We’re so backwards.
Can’t go wrong with the SKS. 150CAD for a reliable Soviet surplus rifle with dirt cheap ammunition!
I have yet to get an SKS, but I’ve been doing .22 plinking, turkey shooting with my 12 gauge and some long distance marksmanship with my M305.
Amen.
I’m talking in rural Ontario from my perspective. My Aunt and Uncle have a 400+ acre farm about an hour West of the Greater Toronto Area. An afternoon of plinking, trap shooting and marksman ship can drop 500 rounds without a blink of an eye haha.
Plus it seems that the rural areas are devoid of the poisons of Modern Feminism. The women out there are seldom sluts, and are hard working and respecting of the symbiotic relationship of a man and a woman, both with their own unique qualities.
Yep. That’s why I mentioned above that it may be for the best that blue city types stay put. Hell now that you mention it, perhaps an ad campaign strengthening their prejudices is justified.
“Avoid Ohio, it’s full of dirty rednecks who are illiterate and ugly!”
It’s what they believe already, reinforce it I say, heh.
Meanwhile, I’ll stroll down OSU campus awash in hotties.
I just figure the only things cities create are are the four horsemen. Especially pestilence.
Totally! 20 cents a round? Why the hell not?
Sounds like you are living the dream. I am slowly working towards that life. I want to take it one step further beyond chickens and have some goats too.
Dogs are man’s best friend. Dogs are loyal, intelligent, and help protect their owners.
What’s a girl’s best friend? Diamonds. Because women are shallow, vapid whores only concerned with material goods.
Yup.
http://i.imgur.com/9L9Cf.jpg
the only thing this shows is how shallow woman are. anyway, how many woman do you know who can afford good looking diamonds, not just the shitty small ones? more so, how many woman do you know who manage to get them on their own, not from some rich guy? im curious if its even 1% of females at all. Now compare that with how many guy you know that have a dog. speaking from accomplishment, you see indeed who is the smarter sex. the one that actually gets his “best friend”
Entirely correct, women do not buy things like diamonds and expensive cars themselves. In fact women are the tightest people around when it comes to THEIR money.
Expensive trips, diamonds, cars aren’t actually desired by women for their own sake, they’re desired because of the status and the high that comes with knowing a man literally took you to Paris because he wanted access to your cunt.
If I managed to run a marketing campaign that convinced women used toilet paper was expensive and exclusive they would be equally happy to get used toilet paper as they would be a diamond and men would buy it. It’s not about the object, it’s about power. Pussy power.
The toilet paper thing already exists, the Kardashian’s, EXCLUSIVELY, use BLACK toilet paper and ADVERTISED it on their TV show using Stealth Marketing:
http://starcasm.net/archives/231408
Do you think most men care about what color the toilet paper is?
However, you too, can have 6 rolls (840 sheets), for the low, low, price of $24.99
http://www.amazon.com/Renova-Colour-Toilet-Bathroom-Tissue/dp/B00I7P9PBA/ref=pd_sim_sbs_194_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=313RvaHmpFL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=1PVYQPXT9X6AHWAW30F6
A diamond won’t defend you from criminals who threaten the sovereignty of your personal property.
Most dogs, including certain breeds in particular, will defend you to the death.
A dog is a far better companion than a woman.
Though to their credit, women are toilet trained. Mostly.
http://www.shape.usnews/report/09
My dog came from the pound, 6 months old, already toilet trained and only uses the bathroom at my property line where no one walks.
I had to teach him to sit, follow, walk by my side, etc. but the difference is he actually listens and learns… you can’t teach a woman.
Yet women have dogs too.
They have dogs the size of cats. Why not get a cat?
Because cats don’t return love with sycophantic slavering.
But women will when you first pull out one of two things: a thick roll of cash, or a thick cock–until she stretches to size.
lol…
I had a dog from 1980 until 2000; beagle terrier mutt. She was the best. In her prime she could run down a rabbit – hell she could still run the day she died.
I still miss her. I’ve not had a dog since and probably never will again. http://www.trainingdogs101.com
Sad to say, two weeks ago I had to put down my 13yo GWP, Abby. It was the most painful thing I’ve been through in my 46 years. Best friend I ever had, period, and smart as a whip.
sorry man…
I have one too, and I don’t think I’ll have another after he goes..
Man, I know what you mean. The day I had to put down my Golden, the pain was insane. I literally fell to ground and couldn’t stop weeping. Losing a dog is harder than a family member.
I know man.. The bond is unreal…
I don’t have my own dog, but consider my dads dog mine since he spent most of his time with me while I still lived with my parents. Now that I’ve moved out and to a different city, I find myself missing the dog more than any of my friends or family members. You can’t talk to a dog over the phone so I feel like he is the only one who is really missing from my life. He is also more interesting, intelligent and fun to spend time with that a lot of the people I know.
My best
Condolences man. Cats and other pets are just that, pets, but dogs are family. Anybody who says otherwise has never really owned a dog.
Best thing you can do for your best friend is to be there at the end for them and help them transition to the next phase.
Having a pet is like having a kid, the child’s behavior depends on the parent
Dogs are better than people. I have never understood why women call men dogs. They are basically calling us extremely loyal, caring, and obedient creatures right up until someone hurts a dog so bad that it never fully trusts humans again.
I had a dog from 1980 until 2000; beagle terrier mutt. She was the best. In her prime she could run down a rabbit – hell she could still run the day she died.
I still miss her. I’ve not had a dog since and probably never will again.
wow 20 yrs…no dog lived longer than Doug’s though:
Speaking of human nature, we have had this belief in the culture for the past 50 years or so about the importance of expressing your feelings. Yet when we express our disappointments with the women of the world, women and their male enablers call us “misogynists” and tell us to STFU because they don’t want to hear expressions about those kinds of feelings.
Funny how that works. .
Our mistake was taking their advice in the first place. Having lived in a time when men weren’t all sharing and caring, I have to say, I want to go back to that. Any friggin’ day of the week brother, any friggin’ day of the week.
I regret having never been able to be alive in that time. I dream of the days when men were men, and women were women. No lines crossed, no confusion, no bullshit.
I do remember the pushes even in the ’70’s to make men into faggots, but it really didn’t take with most men much until the 1990’s hit. The push was there, but ignored, at least for a while is what I’m saying.. As goofy as the period was, you still had traditional roles in place. It was an interesting time to be alive, for certain, and I’m glad I was around to see it, it sustains my hope for the future. What once was can become again, history is not linear, nor are cultural trends.
I grew up in the day of the “You can do anything, Go girl!” America, so that’s all I know, and it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the line crossing we are now seeing where TRANSGENDER shit is entering every facet of life. I don’t think I ever even heard of this word until about a year ago outside of extreme classificaions of porn (I remember asking a friend what Tranny Grannies means haha).
Now it is accelerating and we are seeing it all over magazines (Bruce Jenner) hearing about 5 year old trannies, and I even posted a story about a 2 year old tranny. If this isn’t the absolute bottom of the barrel of what a society offers, I honestly don’t know how much farther it is possible to go, other than physically pooping on the streets, and our forefathers built sewer systems already, otherwise I’m sure we’d be seeing it here. EDIT: I forgot I posted a story about seeing a girl pee in front of me on a busy public street around 10PM in a large, well lit area recently. I try to block this stuff out… damn
Men’s Health is allowing people to vote from choices on a list who gets the cover; a tranny is currently in the lead. Imagine that? A tranny might get the cover.
Fucking sucks doesn’t it? Imagine growing up and seeing women and men who acted like the men and women you see in old black and white movies. The world I lived in was an alien planet, it feels like, and my memories of childhood and early adulthood are as if they couldn’t possibly have occurred, they’re so different than what we have today. And the shitter is, I’m not even “old old”, I’m not some 90 year old dude from WW2 spitting cigar flakes and screaming “git off my lawn!”, I’m GenX for goodness sake.
Yeah, it is all accelerating at an unbelievable pace. I think we had one girl who dropped out of my high school class because she was pregnant. I remember the day I watched “The Lost Kids of Rockdale County” and was absolutely blown away by the debauchery and immorality going on around the same time I was in middle school as they were–drunken orgies with multiple sex partners in the same night, unsupervised children and drug use at mansions where kids lived alone without adult supervision.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/etc/press.html
But today I bet if I watched it it would probably just seem unpleasant but not out of place.
There is a photograph of my grandfather at the age of 13 and he literally looks 30 years old. Because he is dressed well, doesn’t have a clown expression on his face, and probably had more masculinity instilled in him by that age than most guys ever will.
We have entered the Twilight Zone. Holy Hell.
The dogs are amazing creatures. It’s weird to think that, up to this day, the origins of our relationship are still somewhat mysterious, theory says homo sapiens tamed some wolves that were more docile than their peers and, from those early wolves, the dog breeds came, however no one has been able to prove it decisively.
Some say dogs domesticated us.
Actually, beer domesticated us. We settled down into an agricultural society originally, the theory goes, to raise barley and other grains for brewing. Or at least so I’ve heard for many years and several sources.
And then 12 years after beer was invented, scotch tied us to the land forever!
Wouldn’t take much to prove. Wolves and dogs can interbreed which means that they are still essentially the same species. Unlike the world of Star Trek, in real life you basically have to be the same species or so damned close as to make the difference irrelevant in order to breed successfully. Even as close as horses and donkeys are, they cannot successfully breed anything but impotent hybrids (mules), for example.
Fun fact, dogs and wolves are so close that they can interbreed, but being just a bit off, neither can successfully interbreed with a fox.
So yeah, I’d say that the proof is in the bag right from the get go on your theory.
The science is not that much settled. We know less than we thought mate.
http://sciencenordic.com/wolves-became-domesticated-dogs-much-earlier-thought
Don’t let a female near your dog without you present until you TRAIN HER on how to act around your dog. They will destroy your hard work in a moment by being cute with the dog and throwing all the discipline out the window, just as she does in her personal life.
True to an extent. Dogs learn their place in a pack. As long as you are still the alpha pack leader, your dog will know its place. Claim your woman. My dog has an entirely different relationship with me than my girlfriend. I wouldn’t want her trying to whoa the dog on a bird, but she also doesn’t train and wrestle with him daily. Sit, down, stay and basic house commands, however, the dog obeys.
“Then his front paws start creeping further and further off until just his butt is on the bed. It’s undeniably cute and impressively smart, but it’s also directly disobeying my command and cannot be tolerated.”
can you make a short vid or gif of this? this sounds sooo cute
Also, let’s be honest, using one animal to hunt another animal oozes pure masculinity.
Um…..no.
Using a dog AND a rifle to hunt those formidable beasts known as mallard ducks….. yeah, that is about as masculine as playing an FPS shooter video game.
Hunt down a wanted human fugitive criminal to collect the reward money, and THEN, yes, that is badass. The FBI always has ten ‘Most Wanted’ on its list, so you know where to start.
Hunting and killing anything is a masculine pursuit. Don’t belittle men who still have the wherewithal and balls to take the time to raise animals to hunt while putting in practice with shooting in order to bag game. This “if you aren’t killing humans you’re a pussy” meme is ridiculous on its face. Take up bear or boar hunting and get back to us on what is and isn’t masculine.
I know, right?
I will tell you what, bowhunting even something as innocuous as a deer is dangerous as hell. I had a friend on a trip with us in umm… 96? that wound up in intensive care for almost three weeks because he was too close and missed his mark. Those antlers are not just for show.
Some people have no luck at all. A year later, we were varminting and he lost a finger and a chunk of arm muscle to a Badger. The little bastard was going straight for his throat and his dog saved him.
Mike though? He still wants to go hunting again. I gotta hand it to him, he’s a little guy but has more determination than a pack of marines.
Goring is an awful thing.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/31/wounded-deer-injures-hunter/5076957/
And hooves. Gotta watch those hooves if you’re on the ground and not in a tree.
And then there’s boar hunting, which can and does lead to human deaths, those fuckers are tanks that can survive a hail of 7.62×39 from an AK long enough to charge you and make it their business to turn your legs into ribbons of dead flesh. And to top it off, they’re smart as hell and will round about on you if you’re tracking them.
http://www.thejump.net/wild-hogs/hog-hunting-article/danger-in-the-woods.html
People who do the “if you ain’t killin’ humans you ain’t really hunting” I generally find are anti-hunting leftists or city boys with zero clue about actual hunting. It’s interesting insofar as they seem to have an imbedded assassin fantasy which is perfectly peachy to them, but get upset that men might shoot Bambi. Not saying that this is the case for “Toads”, it’s just a general observation that usually pans out to be true.
They probably read the most dangerous game… once.
I didnt know badgers could do such damage.
Large wooden badgers are especially dangerous to you, if you’re a Frenchman. Large wooden rabbits on the other hand, not so much, and they make great catapult ammunition.
they can and will if you get stupid and step closer to them when they are warning you off.
Well, men kill. It’s a defining characteristic of being a man. every serious coming of age male ritual involves death or the threat of death of some kind.
Being able to kill, being willing to, or being able to put yourself in the way of death is literally what it means to be a man. That’s why I have zero respect for pacifists. One does not value life too cheap, but one does not be stingy with it when neccessary either.
It doesn’t have to be other men. And you are right about the boars… That’s why medieval hunters did not hunt boars with arrows… They did it with a spear, with a very wide flange halfway down the shaft so you could keep that thing from charging right up the shaft and taking you with it. Or let him push you backwards (better being knocked 30 feet than getting gored)
But you aren’t hunting bears or boars. That too with a spear or bow/arrow.
You are using a rifle and dog to hunt ducks, and then think you are some friggin’ dragonslayer….
Spare me your Millenial angst, ok? You have no idea what I hunt. You’ve clearly never hunted and have zero clue what you’re going on about, you simply are repeating oft recited leftist boilerplate.
Your definition tries to conflate masculinity with violence. Co-opting language is feminist liberal cultural marxist horseshit garbage. Masculinity has been traditionally defined, or at least one aspect of it, as providing healthy food for your family. Being a man is more than being able to buy your shitty fat family HungryMan frozen dinners.
When was the last time you climbed 3000 ft and walked 7 miles for meat?
What hunting dog would you recommend for a one bedroom apartment in manhattan?
Just get an alligator, chain it to the radiator. Scares the burglars off
you’re not serious??
Great Dane or Mastiff. The trick is to have the dog occupy at least 45% or more of the entire square footage of the apartment for it to be really effective.
The question is, what the hell would he be hunting in Manhattan?
Terriers were bred to hunt. That’s a breed where so many have been bred for show and pets that I would look for a hunting breeder who breeds on ability and not just show strengths.
Does anyone know any good sources for training ? I got me a dog after I got bit by a copperhead. Wanted to train a garden companion. To be my eyes and ears for snakes. But I need to train him to stay reasonably near me off the leash and not did and tear up my garden. He is useless, but that is my fault. I just had no idea how to go about it. (I am no better at walking my dog than Obama. He tugs like crazy. Fortunately, he is a a jackrat (Jack Russel and rat terrier)and only weighs 20 pounds. So I can easily pull him back. But I wish I had trained him. He is fun, but useless.
He is a couple of years old now. Maybe to late. But I would love to try. Just do not know how.
I’d Google it. Watch videos, read articles, etc. You need to be the alpha dog. Stern but not cruel, rewarding but not pampering and congruent in your actions and vocal tones.
Don Sullivan’s the Perfect Dog is a really good non-specific DVD for dog training. My brother used it to train his Sheppard mix and got me a copy. Good stuff. I had the same issue with tugging and his method worked great. Also has a great method for “down.” You don’t really need the full kit, and can just order the DVDs.
While you are waiting for it to arrive, the method is to go to a field and let the dog get to the end of it’s leash and quickly change directions, give a correction with the lead and simultaneously giving a command. I use “with me” for normal, non-heel walking. This teaches the dog that being on lease involves watching you. When you are out on a walk and the dog starts pulling, a quick 180 gets them back paying attention to you. Patience. It took a few months before my pup was walking correctly with no reminders and he still has his moments. Remember, the dog never gets to its goal by pulling.
thanks
Keeping a dog in a cage at night or when out of the house?
I do not know if any of you have seen this, but about 15 years ago, one of my relatives got their first dog, a small dog, for their kid. I though it was ok except I would have expected something larger, something that could have contributed to the protection of the family.
There were two things that surprised me about how they handled the dog:
1: They got such a small dog that when she need to go outside, someone had to be there all the time to protect the dog from other animals! They are in a town in MA, so the only thing that might be in the area during the day could be a hawk, or in rare cases, a fox. They got a dog that needed to be protected by the people, instead of the other way around.
2: They put the dog into its ‘cage’ at night or when they went out. I can not remember as a kid even having a cage to put the family dog in. I mentioned this to them and they said it was to make sure the dog did not make a mess of the house or some other yuppie explanation like that. They seemed to think that this is the way it is supposed to be when you have a dog.
Excellent fucking article. I do love dogs and I hate seeing dogs with poor undisciplined trainers who treat them like people.
It gave me immense pride when I learned how to properly train my dog. Unfortunately, he got quite sick and eventually we had him put to sleep, but I did what I could in the remaining time I had with him.
The BEST, most ironic thing about dogs? They’re more of an indicator of the owner’s personality, traits, and abilities than that of the dog itself.
Aggressive trainers raise aggressive dogs, insecure trainers raise insecure dogs, weak trainers raise weak dogs. Disciplined trainers raise disciplined dogs.
I say this in all seriousness: we can learn a lot from dogs. They’re loyal, they willingly work and instinctively protect their families–no matter what form they take. Also, they truly live in the moment; have you ever seen a dog experience happiness? They go full throttle–no half measures.
Back in grade school we had 60+ German Shorthaired Pointers at once. 50 plus puppies born in a one week period. They are really great dogs.
I love my bull terrier, dogs are really the men best friends. When I decided to adopt a dog, I never thought that along with the joy of having a partner would also have headache for his rowdy behavior. Today I managed to teach him to be better behaved and we get along very well, but was not easy. Here http://www.lifeasier.net/hidden-secrets-to-train-a-dog/. I tell a bit of my experiênce trainning my puppy.