Real Life Dog Training

When was the last time you used a five-minute down stay with your dog? I'm willing to bet that it was the last time you practiced that in a training class.

There is a lot of stuff that is taught in training classes that seem contained just to the class. I have talked to a lot of people who have never used half of what they learned in their training classes after the course was over. That's crazy!

It is not their fault at all though. It is the fault of the class they took. Do I think they were learning things that were pointless? Not at all. I think they were being taught out of context.

I was guilty of this when I first started training. I would go over the mechanics of specific cues and that was it. A sit was a sit. A stay was a stay. I would show people how to do all of these things with their dogs but never took the next step of showing them how to actually use it.

Now, all of my training has a context. Sit is no longer just a command, it is a tool. We go over how we can use it to prevent door dashing, to make nail trimming easier, to prevent counter surfing, to make it easier to catch a loose dog, etc.

If you sign up for any of our training classes, a key focus of that training is teaching you how to use all of these cues in your daily life. Our homework is always focused on practicing out in the real world, not just in your living room.

The goal of training is to have a well behaved member of your family in your everyday life, not to have a perfect performer. No one lives in a rally obedience course, taking one command at a time. We all live in a messy world filled with challenges that we can overcome with our furry best friends by our sides.