Obedience Training

Puppy Obedience

Our puppy obedience is done mainly with positive reinforcement. Our main objective is to teach your puppy to learn. With positive reinforcement clicker training, your puppy will learn in a very fun, yet productive manner. The basic commands that we teach are come, sit, heal, down, kennel and stay.

The clicker is just like the cricket we all received in school. First, we condition your puppy to the clicker by clicking and treating repeatedly until he looks for the treat after the click noise is heard. Once that has been accompilshed (which takes about five minutes) we will start teaching actions so we can pair them to the commands. For example, the puppy dances around, spins in circles, wags his tail, walks on his hind legs, then during a much needed break, he SITS! Once his hind end is on the ground, he hears a CLICK! Automatically he knows that he gets a treat. After approximately the third time, he knows that in order to get treated, he must be sitting (even though at this point he has no idea what "sit" means). Why do we even use the clicker? Well, he knows that what he got treated for was what he was doing the moment he heard the click. Have you ever tried reaching down to treat or even pet a puppy while he stays CALMLY seated? This is not as easy as it sounds because once he sees your hand coming towards him, he jumps with joy and when you have made contact you have treated him for jumping!

After the action of sit has been learned, we start teaching the command "sit". The action usually takes between two and four sessions and the command only takes two or three sessions.

The only type of negative reinforcement we use during puppy training is to teach AAGHH!!! This is trained while clicker training. If the puppy stands during a sit/stay command, he gets an AAGHH and no treat, in fact he is ignored until he is once again seated.

There is a lot that goes into training that we do not go into in this short illustration, such as body movements. For instance, dogs "talk" to other dogs through body language and during training, one has to be conscoiusly aware of body language at all times. We have a lot of practice training puppies and dogs here at Sarahsetter, so let us help you have an obedient puppy that will be a joy to have around.

Adult Obedience

The starting age of a dog should start at ten months old, however, older dogs can also be trained, but their training may take longer because we have to train away the bad habits that older dogs deveolp so that we can replace them with good training behaviors.

We have trained many different breeds of dogs, purebreds and mixed breeds alike, to become obedient companions. Our obedience course is an intensive five week course in which your dog will stay at Sarahsetter. We have indoor/outdoor,heated and cooled kennel facilities for your dog's comfort. The basic commands that we teach are come, sit, down, kennel and stay. With most intelligent breeds we expect to send home reliable off leash companion.

We use a variety of training methods in which to train dogs. We use positive reinforcement, as well as behavioral training not limited to the electronic training collar. We do NOT use punishment or punishment based collars. The difference in negative reinforcement and punishment is that negative reinforcement can be stopped by the trainee's actions at that moment and punishment happends after the action has ceased, so the trainee has no way to learn what to do or not to do. A very good example of negative reinforcement is a vehicle's seat belt buzzer. Each time you get into a car and do not put on your seat belt, you hear an annoying buzz. The car compaines learned that the consumer learned to ignore the noise, so now the the vehicles have a buzzer that bothers you every five minutes until you comply and put on your seat belt. Appling the same technique to dog training is simple. For instance, after the dog has learned the action and command "sit", he may decide of his own accord not to comply after hearing the command. Using the lowest level that the dog responds to, the collar goes on and will go off as soon as he decides to comply. It may not seem to be a big deal if your dog does not sit when you ask him to, but if he goes racing towards a busy street or highway, you will want him to listen to your command to come back to potentially save his life. If he does not respect your commands in the confines of your house, why would he as he is fleeing after a dog he wishes to play with or whatever else may strike his fancy?

There is a lot more to training than is allowed to be written here. Knowledge, practice, patience and perseverance help us be great trainers which make it for your dog to learn. Consistancy in our actions and constantly taking your dog out to train each day is just one of the benefits. As professional trainers we have the best interest of you and your dog. If you would like more detailed information on the training collars we use and why negative reinforcement is so reliable, please read the article "Do You Know Your Collar?", written by Mark Fulmer and published by Tri-Tronics.