Hello Dog Owners!
Hello and welcome to the first issue of DOT News!
I am really excited that you are coming along for the ride and I really hope that you enjoy the content of these newsletters as we go forward.
Like I said in my last email, everything that we will be doing with DOT Academy will be announced first in the newsletter with the exception of the odd hint here and there on social media. This means that you’ll be right in the front row, as it were and the first to know what’s going on and what our plans are likely going to be. One thing’s for sure, it’s guaranteed that it will have something to do with dog training!
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Thank you for sticking with us. I hope you get as much from reading newsletter this as I have creating it.
Down to Basics – Functional Obedience
I thought that it would be a good beginning to go back to the start and discuss the role of Functional Obedience, what it can bring to you and your dogs life in general and exactly what it is. Some people can get a little confused as to what Functional Obedience actually is, so let’s start there.
For me, I define Functional Obedience simply as the level of obedience required of a dog that enables it to reliably perform a task or group of tasks and exhibit certain behaviours required of it.
Seeing as I focus mainly on training companion dogs (which is what DOT Academy is all about) I would expect a level of obedience that would enable me to take my dog almost anywhere as I lead my daily life, and have them behave in a way that is calm, acceptable and with very good manners.
Here’s a list of the Most Important 10 Things that I would expect my dog to be able to do when adequately trained in Functional Obedience as a Companion Dog:
1. Be friendly towards people, but not over-friendly so that the dog lunges to meet them, or jumps up. It is important that the dog is very tolerant of children.
2. Be neutral around other dogs. This means taking an interest, but not lunging to go to them, whine, bark or being reactive towards them in any way, or overly focused on them.
3. Be Confident in Different Environments, such as towns, parks, cities, restaurants, trains, buses, shops, car parks, building sites, walking in traffic and even fireworks!
4. Being non-reactive around livestock is also a very good skill for dogs to learn, especially for a town or city dog that rarely encounters sheep and cows in their daily activities.
If your dog encounters livestock on their country walk and is responsible for any damage of that livestock, then under the Animals Act 1971, you are responsible for financially compensating the farmer for any injury to, or loss of, livestock as your dog being on farmers land is typically seen as an act of trespass.
Despite common views of people, a farmer that shoots a dog is seen to have committed a wrong and if a farmer acts in a way that causes injury to the dog, then they will need to prove that there was no other reasonable way to deal with the situation.
Although in these situations the law is allegedly slanted in favour of the farmer, it would be wise to ensure that your dog has been adequately socialised as much as possible with a variety of different types of livestock such as chickens, ducks, geese, sheep, cows and horses.
5. Be able to Settle Down when asked, such as in a coffee shop, pub, restaurant, meeting room, public transport, etc., or whenever and wherever asked to do so by the owner. This means lying or sitting calmly with the owner in a variety of different environments and for varying lengths of time.
6. Have Good Manners and doesn’t jump up or lunge at people, doesn’t barge through doorways, is quiet and calm, meets other dogs only when told and in a calm manner. Is gentle when taking food from the hand and not boisterous when around people, especially children.
7. Has an Excellent Level of Basic Obedience meaning that it will sit, lie down, go to bed, leave an item when requested.
8. Will Come When Called, every single time.
9. Walks Calmly on the Leash Without Pulling and is responsive of the owners changes of speed and direction. Leash etiquette can also extend to sitting when the owner stops or at a curbside and responding promptly to any leash pressure applied by the owner.
10. Be Quiet and Calm While You Leave Your Dog with another person when going to the toilet in a cafe or bar, or while going to look around a non dog friendly shop. The dog must sit patiently waiting for you to return, not be overly stressed and not whine or bark or display any type of behaviour that can be classed as irritating or annoying to others.
Of course, this is certainly not an exhaustive list by any means, but owning a dog that is able to perform just these few things consistently when asked will not only have other people thinking that you have a highly trained dog, but it paves the way for an exquisite relationship between you and your dog for an entire lifetime and makes them a joy to be with rather than a struggle, which of course would be the alternative of owning an untrained dog.
How Do You Get There?
“It’s alright you saying that these things are some of the basic requirements for an obedient dog, but how can I train my dog to do all of these things. Will it not take a lifetime?”, I hear you ask.
So, maybe you have some questions as to how you are going to help your dog achieve these many things and I would be surprised if you didn’t. Please be assured though that training a dog to this level of obedience is certainly possible with the right goals, mindset, tools and techniques and not as difficult as you may anticipate.
Here’s how we are going to do this and it’s as easy as 1-2-3.
Firstly, you need to…
1. Take Stock of Where You Are Now
Do you have a puppy or an adult dog? Do they have any reactivity issues or behaviours that are annoying, irritating or just totally unacceptable? How old are they? Do they have any health concerns? How is their obedience at home and in public places? Are they attentive to you or prefer to sniff around and look for other dogs, rabbits and squirrels? Are they confident or fearful? Are they reactive or calm?
There are a whole host of things that need to be taken into consideration when looking to start training your dog in Functional Obedience and unless you have a newborn puppy, then the odds are you will be dealing with some behaviour issues that need sorting from the outset.
With that in mind you next need to…
2. Set Your Goals
Putting aside all the frustrating things that your dog does and putting any doubts you may have of them being able to be trained to an acceptable level of obedience firmly on the shelf just for a moment or two, take some time to start day-dreaming about your ideal dog.
Where do you want to take them? What would you like to do with them? How would you like them to behave in all different situations they will experience within your lifestyle? How do you want them to be? Imagine the life you want with your dog, in detail and full technicolour!
Set some goals as to what you would like to achieve with them and see if you can give a realistic timescale to when you would like to achieve these things by.
Say for instance that you would like Fido to stop pulling while walking on-leash. He has been doing this for over a year now and is very conversant with pulling and sniffing while out on his walk, so you guess it may take a while for him to learn how to walk more acceptably on leash. You give around 8 weeks to tackle this issue and get him to walk on a loose leash each time you go out for a walk.
You’ve just set your goal: You have identified what you want to achieve and by when. Brilliant!
Now all you need to do is prepare to…
3. Do the Necessary Work
This will include things like:
1. Finding out the techniques and practices to use for Loose Leash Walking
2. Putting time aside to work on and practice walking on a loose leash
3. Being willing to change your routine
4. Setting Boundaries
5. Being Consistent with training
6. Being Patient
7. Being calm and not get frustrated at any lack of progress
8. Preventing Fido practising pulling on leash anymore
9. Rewarding, praising and correcting as appropriate
10. Not giving up until you have reached your outcome
There you have it! 10 Steps to a Loose-Leash Walking Dream!
Seriously though, the work isn’t difficult, but you need to be prepared to show up consistently day in day out until your goals have been achieved. Even then the new behaviour will need to be constantly reinforced and we can have some fun with that one as time progresses!
A Well-Behaved Dog is a Happy Dog
And when a dog is both happy and well-behaved, then the owner is happy too!
Do you want a dog that can be a great life-long companion? Then it would be good plan for you to decide that in order to make that happen, you would need to be prepared to invest some time and effort to put in the work.
Our dogs are here for only a short amount of time compared to us and we will likely have many dogs in our lifetimes. But why spend all of their years with us struggling with their behaviour, shouting at them as they always misbehave each and every day, or being continually worried that they won’t behave appropriately in public?
Rather than take them with you where you can, you instead leave them at home alone a lot of the time and walk them after everybody else is hopefully in bed, making their quality of life significantly less than what it could have been if you had been in a position to include them more in your everyday life, as they should have rightly been.
So instead, why not opt for a different life for you both? A life of joy, contentment and happiness where you make each and every day of your lives together count?
We expect a lot from our dogs and when they don’t perform as we want them to we can sometimes come down on them hard out of frustration, if they repeatedly disappoint us. But is it really their fault for not behaving, or are we the ones responsible, to some extent, for not taking the time to teach them the skills they need to know how to live their life in a human world, when they haven’t got a clue about what the rules are? I believe, it’s up to us to teach them, just as we teach our children.
Onwards and Upwards!
So now that you have a small inkling of what Functional Obedience is all about, we can start to explore some of the things that we need to do in order to reach those goals that we set for our dogs and ourselves.
Please believe me when I say that in the majority of cases it is possible to turn things around and improve your dogs obedience level. After all, your dogs temperament is set at around 16 weeks of age and it’s almost impossible to change it. All you then have left to leverage and control their behaviour and impulses, is obedience.
The good thing is, obedience can be taught at any age (both to you and your dog) and contrary to an old saying of days gone by, I absolutely know that “You CAN teach an old dog new tricks!”.
For me, Functional Obedience Training is a powerful tool that will be a skill your dog will learn and you will learn over each of your lifetimes. I truly believe that training never stops, that learning never stops and it is a life-long quest until the end.
So with all that said, go and set yourself some goals that you would like to achieve with your dog(s) over the coming months, write them down in a journal and prepare to make some significant changes.
Be warned though, it’s likely to be fun!
It’s not what we can do, it’s what we will do.