The question goes something like this: "Have you been doing much training lately"?
My reply too often is "yes, we've been going for walks". Doesn't sound like much, I admit.
While I am by no means a professional trainer, I do insist on having obedient, well behaved dogs, at least to the extent that I am able to train them. My method for obedience training relies heavily on walks, especially during the puppy years and is the time during which I do a lot of proofing for the commands we are working on. I do most of my own obedience training, relying heavily on what I have learned from others over the years and continue to learn from trainers today. Learning in dog training, as with anything else, in my opinion, is an endeavor that should never end until we are lying toes up and six feet under.
I believe obedience work starts with building a strong foundation. I mean by this, that there are a number of commands that most dogs should know well and perform well in almost every situation. This begins, for me anyway, with sit, come, whoa (for pointing dogs), kennel and heel. There are others I add in as we progress but this is where I usually start. These commands are taught at home both in the house and in the yard. Once the dog appears to know the commands I start incorporating some of them into our walks as a means of proofing. I don't want to imply that I don't walk the dogs until they learn these commands, they walk with me from the time I get them, but the "formal" walks start once these command have been learned. The dog-walks at this point are all on leash.
It is important to keep in mind that dogs are place oriented. This means that they relate a command to the place they learned it. So for example if you teach a dog sit in your kitchen, he might not sit when you tell him to at the playground. You have to teach the dog to sit in several locations until that command becomes generalized for him so that he will obey the command no matter where he is.The easiest place for me to accomplish this "command generalization" is on our walks. I can give the command in several locations, sometimes having to re-teach the command in each new place as we move around. I also change up the routes we walk and give the commands in different places along each route. This is the first step for proofing the commands.
The next step is incorporating distractions. Did you ever notice that some dogs will obey their owner perfectly but as soon as another person, dog or other animal enters the picture the dog doesn't obey at all? This is a typical sign of a dog that has not been trained to distractions. My walks are a great way to accomplish this step. While we are out for our walks it is not uncommon to encounter other people out walking, sometimes with their dogs. There is also a horse farm up the street where sometimes the horses will be close to the road. There is also a house on one of our routes with very active bird feeders which in addition to birds, attracts all other manner of wildlife. Not to mention the number of cars and trucks that go by. Having a dog sit still with his attention on you while a gravel truck or motorcycle goes by can be quite a task. These walks provide an opportunity for all of this.
These steps all lead to our eventual goal of being able to perform these obedience commands off leash no matter where we are. I won't pretend that I am successful with every command in every location or every situation but I think we do pretty well. Last year I was hunting with a friend of mine up north and we had to walk up a power line for a short way until we came to the covert I wanted us to hunt. I had cast my dogs off as we started out, but noticed immediately that a brush hog had recently been run up the line, which left a wide track of thousands of sharp stems sticking out of the ground. Think of a field filled with pungi sticks. Not wanting my dogs to slice their bellies open I whistled them in and heeled them, off leash, as we continued up the line. They obeyed perfectly. This is just one example of how teaching the commands and proofing them leads to an obedient dog. Walks for me are key to this process.
Here is an example of how one of our walks might go. We'll assume the dog has learned to sit, come and heel in the yard. We move out to the driveway, dog is seated to my left, on leash, with his attention on me. I give the command to heel and off we go. If his attention wanders off me, I'll get it back. If/when we encounter a distraction I command sit and we stay there until the distraction passes. Then I'll command heel again. Now I will head to the horse farm and walk up and down the road, working on heel and sit in front of the horses for awhile and then we move on. Many times the dog will be on a flexi-leash and I will release him from heel and let him take line out. While he is away from me I will command sit. Then I will call him in. Once back to me he heels again and we repeat this during the entire walk. His attention is on me, and mine is on him. I'm watching his demeanor, I'm watching his tail. I want that tail wagging. I'm making sure he is not acting stressed or confused. I also make sure that when I give a command he obeys it and correct him when he doesn't.
Once I'm confident that the dog will consistently obey all of the commands on our walks, then I start to prepare him for going off leash. But that is another process for another day. Suffice it to say that these walks are crucial for building the foundation for which all of the other training will be built upon. So if you ever ask me if I've done any training lately and I reply, "we've been going for walks", you now have some idea of what I mean.
Enjoy your dogs,
Ken
