Lucky Dog Cuisine

The Well Trained Dog

Will you train my dog? My husband Jeff and I get that at least once a week. Usually after our dogs have been lying outside a restaurant patiently waiting for us to finish breakfast or lunch. While we smile and joke about being too busy to take on another child the truth is that we have time to train the dog we just don't have enough time to train the owner.

When are you finished dog training? Hmmm. Tough question. Is it after the dog is housebroken? No, I don't think that's quite enough. Is it after they come when called. Nope. What if they don't stay where you leave them? Ok then is it after they stay? Hmm again, I don't think so.

I think you get where this is going. You are never really finished training your dog. At least not if you want to get the most enjoyment out of your best friend.

In our household we start all of our dogs training with basic obedience as soon as they are old enough to come home. Some pick up the basics faster than others and some are a little tougher. When we brought Bugsy, our first Goldendoodle home George our Standard Poodle was in a "movie tricks" program. While I worked with George and was very proud of his progress my husband Jeff was sneaking off into another room and working with 8 week old Bugsy.

By the time he was 10 weeks old Bugsy could, sit, come, stay, down, and even do some of the movie tricks like crawl, roll on your side and hit a mark. Two weeks later by the time he was 12 weeks old we could take him almost anywhere and he would just lie where we left him until we released him with a verbal or visual command.

Pretty awesome for such a little pup. Recently I asked Bugsy, who is now 6 years old, to "hit his mark" after not having worked on that for a while and he just looked at me like I was crazy. Which in this particular case I probably was. Imagine trying to do some of you high school calculus after not having seen or used it for the past 20 years.

Dogs are great. Dogs are smart. Owners on the other hand are, well, human.

Work with youg dog. They don't have to do "movie tricks' but they need to sit and stay, come when called and down quickly in an emergency. You don't need 2 hour training sessions. 2 minutes at a time at frequent intervals can make it much more fun and keep your dog on their toes.

Feeding my dogs whole foods means they typically have more energy than they would on commercial foods. With this comes a responsibility on my part to make sure they get enough exercise, both for the body and the mind. Lots of training sessions may not make your dog the next Lassie or Benjie but it will allow you to enjoy taking them even more places than you do now.

Work with your dog. Discipline your dog and love your dog. They will love you all the more for it.

Have to go now. Murphy and George need to train me again.

Janice