Edie MacKenzie

Edie MacKenzie is a published author, traveler, dog lover, and tortoise enthusiast. Passionate about what she does, her books provide peopel a firm grounding in the dog breed and their unique characteristics with a nice touch of humor.

Successful Sled Dog Training

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Before sled dog training, you must know about the sled dog. Sled dogs are those dogs which are used for pulling the special vehicles which do not have wheels on the ice. Sled dogs have the God gifted ability to run on the ice. Sled dogs usually do not slip on the snow. They feel excitement and try to run as fast as they can on the snow. Sled dogs feel happy when they run on the snow and have ability to transfer the heavy goods through special vehicles from one place to another.

For training, it is better to bring up the dogs in the form of groups and instead of bringing them up a alone. They must be brought up on the open places and must have enough space to run. It is necessary to make the training successful so that you can hold running competitions for your dogs daily. Pamper the one who wins the race and give it more attention on that day. It will assist other sled dogs to run more and all of them will try to increase their running speed and so, your sled training continues successfully as one of the major targets is that you should do efforts for increasing their speed.

Give proper food to the sled dog during training. You should give it such a food which may make it healthy and may not feel tired too soon after pulling the vehicle for short time. Sled dog’s food must have all necessary nutrients in it. It is better to buy the packed food from the market during training as it contains all necessary elements in it which are necessary for the proper growth of the sled dog. Nutrition plays a big role in how successful your dog will be. Properly balanced food delivered at the correct intervals can have a dramatic affect on your dog’s performance not only in its ability to work hard and fast for long periods of time but also with health. A healthy dog will live longer and not suffer from illnesses.

If you feel that your younger sled dog does not run fast even in the groups, you should do younger dog training in between the already trained dogs. When it will see that rest of sled dogs run faster than it, it will surely try to run as fast as it would be possible for it. You should take care of the fact that rest of sled dogs may not try to beat younger sled dog. If rest of dogs tries to be frank with the younger dog, it will learn more from them during training.

Another method for the successful training is that you should be frank with your dog. Try to spend more time daily with it and try to be its friend. When you become its friend, it will obey you more and will follow your instructions happily. In this way, you can teach it more and more in short time during successful training. Give it full attention in every single matter during sled dog training.

Andy Ayres is a dog training specialist and helps dog owners solve problems with their pets. If you want to stop your dog’s excessive barking then learn how a bark collar can help or look here for the most popular bark collars.

Article Source: Successful Sled dog training

Dog Training – The Basic Commands

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Basic Dog Training

There are of course many reasons for owners to want a calm, obedient and faithful dog. For one thing, obedient and trained dogs are happier dogs, less likely to get into tussles with people or with other dogs. Another reason is that many communities require that the dogs living in their neighborhoods be well trained. This is especially true for many breeds thought to have aggression and behavior problems – dog breeds like pit bulls and rottweilers for instance.

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And of course, training your dog well will also make he or she a much better family companion, especially in households where there are young children. Many studies have shown that proper dog training makes a big impact when it comes to cutting down the number of dog bits and other behavior problems encountered by dog owning households.

When considering training your own dog, or having someone else help you train it, there are certain basic commands that must be mastered in order for a dog to be considered truly trained. These basic commands include:

  • Heel – it is important that any dog learn to walk beside its owner on a loose lead, neither pulling ahead nor lagging behind
  • Respond to the word No – the word no is one word that all dogs must learn. Training your dog to respond to this important word can save you a ton of trouble.
  • Sit – Training your dog to sit on command is a vital part of any dog training program.
  • Stay – A well trained dog should remain where his or her owner commands, so stay is a very important command in dog training.
  • Down – Lying down on command is more than just a cute trick; it is a key component of any successful dog training program.

 Dog training does much more than just create an obedient, willing companion. Training your dog properly actually strengthens the bond that already exists between dog and handler. Dogs are pack animals, and they look to their pack leader to tell them what to do. The key to successful dog training is to set yourself up as that pack leader.

Establishing yourself as pack leader is a very important concept for any potential dog trainer to understand. There is only one leader in every pack of dogs, and the owner must establish him or herself as the dominant animal. Failure to do so leads to all manner of behavior problems.

A properly trained dog will respond properly to all the owner’s commands, and will not display anxiety, displeasure or confusion. A good dog training program will focus on allowing the dog to learn just what is expected of it, and will use positive reinforcement to reward desired behaviors.

In addition to making the dog a good member of the community, obedience training is a great way to fulfill some of the dog’s own needs, including the need for exercise, the security that comes with knowing what is expected of it, a feeling of accomplishment and a good working relationship with its handler. Dog training gives the dog an important job to do, and an important goal to reach.

Giving the dog a job is more important than you may think. Dogs were originally bred by humans to do important work, such as herding sheep, guarding property and protecting people. Many dogs today have no important job to do, and this can often lead to boredom and neurotic behavior.

Basic obedience training, and ongoing training sessions, provide the dog with an important job to do. This is especially important for high energy breeds like German shepherds and border collies. Training sessions are a great way for these high energy dogs to use up their extra energy and simply to enjoy themselves.

Incorporating playtime into your dog training sessions is a great way to prevent both yourself and your dog from becoming bored.

A Dog’s Lack Of Understanding Words

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Trained dogs can easily distinguish dozens of different words of human speech. It is always a temptation to believe that they actually understand what these words mean, yet given the nature of their own communication system, the odds seem strongly against it.

Dogs have come to associate certain sounds with certain actions, but those associations are often extremely dependent upon other contextual cues that we may not be aware of. One way to show this is to try giving a dog a familiar command over an intercom. Even a command that the dog is highly motivated to carry out is often ignored unless it is accompanied by some additional cues in our body language.

Indeed, for all of the many continuities that link humans with nonhuman animals, one of the great discontinuities is the way we use language. Human infants, almost as soon as they begin to learn the names of things, take a manifest pleasure in using the name for its own sake. They will point to an object and say what it is – not because they want it, but for no other reason than to share the pleasure of calling the attention of another human mind to it. Even language-trained animals, such as chimpanzees, that have been taught to create “sentences” with computer symbols or sign language expend something very close to 100 percent of their utterances on demands for food, toys, or attention. There is no evidence that they have an independent notion of the symbols as standing for concepts. They have, rather, learned to manipulate series of symbols to get results. Dogs have certainly learned to look at us, or come, when we speak their name, but there is not a scrap of evidence that they grasp the notion that their name is their name, in the sense that it stands for or represents them.

Given all that, however, it certainly seems odd that dogs can distinguish words in human language. Studies by Russian speech scientists found that dogs can readily be trained to distinguish the vowels a and i produced by an audio synthesizer; even when the base pitch of the vowels was changed, the dogs had no trouble telling the two apart.

Dogs may often be confused by substitutions of one consonant for another – try saying “Fly clown” instead of “Lie down,” and your dog will probably react exactly the same. But the ability to distinguish vowels depends on rather precise analysis or the higher-pitched resonances that accompany their base pitch. Dogs do not utter vowels themselves; why should they be able to tell them apart when we say them?

The simple and general explanation for this happy circumstance is that ears are older than speech. Mammalian ears have been around for tens of millions of years, and the ears of all mammals have much in common. Human speech, however, has been around for only 100,000 years or so, and the human vocal tract is a unique and late development. Only humans possess the vocal apparatus needed to generate the sounds of speech.

The Dangers Of “Protection-Training” The Family Pet

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Dogs can be trained to be a dangerous threat and they can be trained to bark bite and attack. Some breeds adapt more readily to such dog protection training than others, but all dogs with vocal chords and teeth have the potential for threatening behavior.

First of all, it is not advocated to administer protection dog training a family pet. There have been too many unfortunate incidents involving people who have been talked into this type of training by the local guard dog trainer. Veterinarians have encountered an endless number of dogs who had to be euthanized because they had become vicious. Not all of these dogs had protection training, but a great many had. Some guard dog trainers will argue that if the right dog is properly protection trained, he will never become vicious and randomly bite.

While this may be true, the bottom line is that the average family cannot handle an attack trained dog. Most people find it difficult enough to get their dog to come when called and not drag them down the street at the end of the leash. Attack-trained dogs are very useful; to the police and military, and in most cases that’s where they belong. The average family certainly does not need a dog who has been conditioned to attack and bite on command.

Most dogs are instinctively protective. Rarely does a dog need protection training to be wary of intruders. This is particularly true of dogs who have been selectively bred to guard, herd, or protect.

Examples of such breeds are the German shepherd, border collie, and Rottweiler. In the wild, canines naturally protect territory and fellow pack members. The protective instinct is further strengthened when the individual feels that he is an integral part of the pack.

Keep in mind that your domestic dog views your family as his pack. If he lives in your home and is part of your family, chances are good that his protective instincts will emerge.

The instinct to protect territory and fellow pack members develops with age. Many people are dismayed that their five-month-old dog is not the least bit protective.

It is not a puppy’s job to be protective! A well-adjusted puppy of any breed should be friendly and love everybody. It is the role of adult pack members to be protective. The puppy instinctively expects you to protect him.

With most dogs, the sense of responsibility for being protective of the pack begins at around one year old, give or take a couple of months depending on the breed and the individual dog. At maturity – eighteen months to two years old – the dog should show even stronger signs of the protective instinct and not need any protection training.

Are Dog Training Collars Humane

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Are dog training Collars Humane?

You may ask yourself if dog training collars are humane. Many people are still under the impression that electronic dog training collars are uncaring “shock collars” that are used to harm dogs. Nothing could be further from the truth. The latest technology has not only enabled electronic dog collars to humanely train dogs, but these devices have safety features that will not allow them to be used to harm dogs.

Training a dog

It is not only hunters that need to train dogs. All dogs, if they are to live with humans, need to be trained. Dogs are very social animals and live to be included in the pack. This is the knowledge that you need when training a dog.

Using an electronic training collar only makes the dog get trained quicker than if you were using other means. If you are hunting and trying to train a gun dog, it is imperative, for the safety of the dog, that he is trained as quickly as possible so that he does not cause any harm to himself and learns to listen to commands.

Whistles and Commands

You can use whistles and commands – and should – when you are training your dog. But when you use them together with electronic dog collars, you make them twice as effective. You can get your dog trained in record time when you combine whistles and verbal commands with the electronic dog collar. The dog will quickly learn to associate the sensation from the collar with the behavior that he is exhibiting.

Of course, in addition to using the electronic dog collar, whistles and commands, you have to be sure to praise your dog when he or she does the right thing. When used in combination, both negative and positive reinforcement have a tremendous effect on dog training efforts.

Humane?

Some people will say that using an electronic dog collar is not “humane.” But they will also balk at yelling at a dog as well as using a dog whistle. Those who believe that only positive reinforcement is needed to train a dog are living in a dream world. Unfortunately, there are many people who are afraid to train their dogs not only to hunt, but to behave in general. What usually happens is that the untrained dog becomes too much of a burden to bear and ends up being given to a shelter. In some cases, the dog may end up getting injured or killed because he has never been taught to listen to commands. Such as “stop” when he is trying to cross a street in front of traffic.

A dog depends on his owner to train him and make him into a social animal. A well trained gun dog will not only make a wonderful hunting companion, but will also be a fun pet for the entire family to enjoy. Using an electronic dog collar only expedites the training of the dog and does not do him any harm. The sooner your dog is trained and knows what is expected of him, the more relaxed both he and you will be.

Geoffrey A. English is the Founder of GundogsOnline.com, the internet’s premiere online magazine dedicated to hunting dogs. Visit their site if you are in need of hunting dog supplies such as dog collars or bark collars.

Article Source: ArticleSpan

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