Advanced Training

Daily walks

Daily walks

If there is nowhere quiet and secluded near your home, go somewhere that is. For a leash use a piece of strong string or light cord ( at least 2 m ( 6 ft.) long), attached to the collar ( it is sometimes a good idea to have a whole ball of string with you.) the length of the string will give the dog a chance to move away and come back to you. Without pulling on the lead or being pulled by it. Imagine you are like a fisherman, playing a fish in relation to its movements : never force the pace. Short leads teach a dog to pull and should be banned. 

The first walk must be very brief : five minutes at the most. The new world with its new smells will interest the young dog quite a lot.. it will often forget all about you and dash hither and thither. Smelling everything with amazement, it will sometimes give itself the odd fright, too. Sometimes it will pull on the lead, prancing like a foal; it will refuse to follow you, and lie with its legs in the air ( remember that offering its belly is a gesture of surrender and requires a gentle response from you ). Bend down to it, talking softly, and comfort it with the odd titbit. You must get the puppy to follow for a few dozen metres. Keeping the lead slack. So that it does not have the impression of being forced too much. 

After five minutes, get back in to the car, and make a great fuss of your dog when you get back home. Take the first walks when the dog has an empty stomach. On the following day, go for another walk, stretching it out to seven minutes; in under a week the puppy will be used to following the trainer for about ten minutes. 

Until the puppy is six months old, restrict these walks to a maximum of fifteen minutes ; when it is between six and nine months, this can be extended to half an hour; when it is between nine and twelve months, 45 minutes will be enough. Remember that a dog on a leash is normally on your left. So as to leave your right arm free, get the dog to follow you, but do not expect it to become a slave, tagging along at your heels. 

Dogs are inquisitive creatures, as all dog-owners know. Their curiosity is useful during training; do not discourage it. Lengthen the lead when your dog darts off to smell something when it falls behind when it runs ahead and do not let it falls behind when it runs ahead and do not let it get used to pulling on the lead; call it to you every now and then; divert its attention from the world around it back to you but do not dampen its interest in what it comes across. You must mould or form your puppy-not deform it, when walking has become a regular pastime. When the dog can walk calmly on a lead, use this development to test its obedience outside the home in different places and circumstances and at the precise moments when it is most distracted. 

On your walks at unexpected moments, but only when the young dog is close to you and on a lead, practise with the command ‘Down’, the whistle, the raised arm and the release command ‘Go!’ while the dog is thinking of other things and when it is a little way off but still on the lead call it by its name and with the whistle; if it does not obey at once. Pull it towards you with the lead and then stroke it and give it a reward. 

Increase the dog’s distractions as time passes and avoid any ‘ undesirable associations’. You can let the dog off the lead during your walks, when it is about 120 days old but not before and only for a short time and only in safe places. Where there is no traffic and where the puppy cannot run out of sight and get lost. Even though the dog is off the lead, call it to you with a bribe of tidbits. 
If it does not come, do not shout at it ( it might run away once and for all), but wait until it comes close of its own accord; then put it back on the lead and practice some compulsory calling. Every time you call the dog move back with brisk short steps as it gets close to you. 

After a walk, and all the interesting things in the outside world, the puppy may well not have urinated, and as soon as you get back home, it may well relieve itself in the first place it comes across. This also happens because a young dog is afraid of leaving his own traces in an unknown place. So as, soon as you return home put the dog in the place where it usually relieves itself. An assistant will often come in useful during training sessions. 

He or she is usually a friend whom you have helped in the same way. Get some one to help you on your walks, when your dog is about 120 days old. This is the time when the call tends to be less effective outdoors. Act at once: a dog who does not obey a call is worthless. Call it, hoping that it will not come to you, while it is playing somewhere. This is precisely when the assistant must throw the chain or bunch of keys. The puppy will be a little scared; without pulling on the lead. Call it very gently and offer it protection with plenty of stroking and patting, and the odd titbit: it will come to you to take refuge and find comfort. 

This assistant should move away at this point. Repeat this a few times and the call will work every time, wherever you are. If you want to have a dog of your own, which spends all its time with you and not with a family- a private dog in other words. 

One that hunts only with you or acts as a guard-dog only for you or which wants only you for company-make sure that no one else at all strokes or pats it. Fondles it, feeds it, plays with or looks after it. Everyone else must act either hostilely or indifferently towards it. If this is what you want, it is quite possible and you will have your very own dog. 

There are some breeds that by nature tend to have just one master or mistress ( several types of pointer, collie, bulldog and pug,, .For example, to round off the second programme you should improve the responses outdoors to the commands ‘No!’ (again with some help if necessary) and ‘Find!’ teach the basic rudiments of retrieving and the command ‘Bark!’. During your walks, take the dog’s meal for it to have at the usual time when it is hungry; get someone to hold the dog and, suing bits of food make a simple trail at the end of which it will find the food-bowl. Make the trail on grass or earth, not on the road or footpath. Gradually, increase the distance from 18 to 64 m ( 20 to 70yd)

The dog will be quick to learn and will find this exercise fun ( and so will you). Make straight or curving trails with a few corners to be negotiated, exciting trails that will not disappoint the young dog, and so give good results. This is a game, when it is about 80 days ( and sometimes as young as 60) your dog will of it sown accord bring you rag or a stick or one of its playthings, such as a slipper or shoes. Do not scold it; do not stifle this natural tendency: if anything, encourage it with approving words and praise. The term ‘ natural tendency’ is used here because all dogs are natural retrievers and it is up to you to use this instinct in the right way. Here is one way of going about it;

1) Encourage the young dog to fetch things, throwing a stock or rolling a ball which it will instantly want to chase. 
2) Do not ask the young dog to bring back the stick or ball : when it has let go of it, pick it up and throw it again. 

The dog of its own accord will bring it back close to you as soon as it realizes that you will throw it for it again. Do not play this game for too long as it will tire the puppy out : stop ( by hiding the stick or ball) when the dog is still full of energy. Make the process of learning and co-operating an enjoyable one, as if the puppy were one of a pack. 

3) When the dog starts to be quite good at fetching things, and comes back to you with the object in its mouth take short steps backward. Calling the dog to come close to you, and then command it sharply to lie down. 
4) Go up to it, stretching out one hand towards the object and offering the dog a titbit with the other. The dog will spontaneously let go of what is in its mouth ( which you must take at once) in order to swallow the food. 

At this stage you will be three-quarters of the way towards the training of a 17 week old dog and all done with two basic commands : the call, the command ‘Down!’. Improve the exercise with two new commands ‘Fetch!’ and ‘Drop!’ You must always give the command ‘Fetch!’ as you actually throw the object, repeating vigorously but in a quiet voice. ‘Fetch!’ ‘Fetch!’ ‘Fetch!’ As the dog comes towards you, holding the object in its mouth, give the command ‘Down!’ and just as the dog opens its mouth to let go of the object and take the titbit give the command ‘Drop!’ in this way, the dog’s ‘mechanical ‘ memory will repeat the movements it has learnt ( Fetching the object and dropping it) when it associates them with the commands ‘Fetch !’ and ‘Drop !’. At the same time its ‘affective’ memory will enable it to enjoy the exercise because of your words of praise and the titbit at the end of it all. Here again, beware of ‘undesirable’ associations.

Note that good retrieving depends on you, not on the dog; all dogs retrieve or fetch of their own accord but must not be made nervous about doing so or find it an unpleasant experience, or be shouted at. It is quiet easy to get a puppy fetch things, and it is enough to improve its performance a little at a time to make it a fine retriever, all because of the four basic commands ‘Down !’. ‘Fetch !’ and ‘Drop !’.

A dog should bark and stop barking-when it is told to do so. For the hunter, barking can be very useful and for any working dog barking is a vital part of guard duties and of retrieving.

A family or companion dog must be quietened when it barks too often and without any good reason. A puppy’s first lesson in barking can be given when your are on the ground. If you keep it waiting, it will whine and yell and bark. At that precise moment give the command : ‘Bark !’ with a little patience it will be easy to make the dog understand what is wanted of it at its next meat-time. Its appetite will sharpen; it will soon get the message and bark whenever you want it to : before you give it a titbit, before you put on its collar for the walks it likes so much, and so on. In order to bark a dog has to put itself in the right mood.

It does not bark in the same way that people talk : a dog’s bark it like a bird’s song. If a dog turns wild it will no longer bark. When a puppy is barking of its own accord because it has heard a suspicious sound or seen a stranger, teach it to bark by giving it the command ‘Bark ! Bark !’. To stop the barking, give the command ‘No !’ ‘then Down !’ and close the dog’s mouth with your hand. Calm the dog down by stroking and patting it and generally distract it.

Outdoors drop a handful of earth on its muzzle with the command “no !’. This will work wonders. This is the end of the second programme for the 90 to 120 days old puppy.

This is the period when the young dog in the wild grasps the hierarchic structure and the establishes its own position of subordination. The two programmes help the trainee pup to put its natural abilities at the disposal of human beings, and this will be of benefit to it and to them. In fact, for a dog to be fulfilled and balanced it needs to express itself with people just as it would express itself in the pack. Its good training and ‘upbringing’, useful for us, is vital for the young dog.