Only 10 things to remember to train a dog....

[MaggieRoseLee]

http://www.silvia.trkman.net/training.htm I just found the above site, and though the woman is more into agility training, if you scroll thru the page she lists 10 paragraphs she states are vital for success in agility dogs.

And I would state they are vital for success in training ANY dog to love to train with us. I find what she says about 'teaching tricks' very interesting because I have many friends that think they are a waste of time (not 'real' training).

With videos http://www.silvia.trkman.net/videos.htm#tricks

[3K9Mom]

I love #1. I especially like the the phrase "FIRM and TRUSTING."

I don't think you can really have one without the other. And it has to go both ways. And I think these apply to anything we do -- agility, training, herding, service dogs, etc.

When/If you get "firm and trusting" down, it seems to me that all the other stuff comes easy. The dog trusts you, you trust yourself, the dog trusts himself, the dog has confidence. He follows your lead; you get results; (if you don't, you go back and figure out why), then you win!

Good tips. We should all have them in our jacket pockets. When things go wrong (as they sometimes will), we can pull out Silvia's steps to success and start again.

Teaching tricks IS important. My 14 year old is a trickster. She learned new tricks her whole life. Mostly, what I've realized, though, is that she learned HOW TO LEARN. She still picks up new behaviors just by watching me train my younger dog. When we stop teaching, they stop learning, and they stop learning how to learn. What a waste of brain power.

[Catu]

Absolutely yes. I started to teach tricks to my Border Collie since she was a puppy. She was doing SAR and has to be retired after a few years, to some "trainer" because I had fulfilled her brain with too much stuff . The facts, she was always sound sensitive, a genetic trait hidden under tons of socialization but always there. As her training advanced she just couldn't manage the stress of emergency situations.

By the time I had re-homed her she had participated in some scenes for TV shows. Then she was hired as the dog of the family on a SitCom (part of the agreement with the new owner was that I could keep working with her).

You have no idea how chaotic is a TV show filming, the director could change plots and we had to deal with actors with no idea of dog behaviour. But thanks all those tricks I taught her, when the actor team was reading a scene and they thought of a new idea that was not in the scripts and the Director said me "Can Chemukh do....?" 20 minutes after the shooting she could learn how to do completely new sequences of actions in that time

[DancingCavy]

What a beautiful list! Oh so true. I should print it out and post it somewhere. . .

[Kayos and Havoc]

Excellent tips!!! I have never heard of her before.

[czgsd]

#7 is my favorite. It's a simple idea, but really made training/competing more fun for us. I can't say enough about how important it is, for those who haven't already discovered it.

Nice tricks video. Someone spends a lot of time with her dog!

[Achielles UD]

9. dogs’ work best when they work for themselves. Don’t ask them for a favour to work with you. Make them ask you for a favour to work with them.

Figured I would post my favorite from the list since others were
This makes training so much fun!