Conversations with a Dog Trainer

I wish there was one special quick to read book that told all the secrets that it takes dog trainers years to learn, and no I've not learned them all yet.  A store place of knowledge that tells us, humans, all the things we need to do in order to make our dogs happy, lazy (and by lazy I mean tired on a regular basis), and well-behaved pups.  Sadly there is not, maybe I'll write some of it one day, but for today I just want to talk about a few of the things that we SHOULD be doing on a regular basis for our pups.  Our dogs need a stable environment with boundaries and rules that they need to follow.  It makes their lives much easier.  If we as humans didn't have any rules or Laws that we needed to live our lives by, think of how much chaos we would be in.  Those boundaries should only be things to help improve their behavior.  Such as: If you are out walking your dog, and you know your dog is going to bark at a stranger that you pass along ...

This morning for the umpteenth time I called Yadi over to me to give him a treat in trade for whatever thing he had grabbed off the floor that belonged to one of my sons, it occurred to me that other people probably have the same thing going on in their house as well.  Yadi learned early on that if he grabbed something he wasn't supposed to have, one of the boys would get really excited about it (start yelling) and play chase with him (try to get the item back)  sometimes it was even me trying to get the item back.  Often it resulted in him bringing things to me to show me what treasure he had found in exchange for a treat if he would give it up without a chase.  So for him, this became one of the best games ever, and he loved to play it so much he trained my boys how to play it with him.  He would find something that they were repeatedly told not to leave on where he could get it and make sure they saw him with it.  Much like the pose in the picture....