Training vs troubleshooting

Sometimes you want an answer from your trainer about a specific question, so you ask, “What about when Fido does … X? I want you to train him to stop doing X.”

But this isn’t an effective way to approach training, in my opinion. This is more like troubleshooting.

It’s a little like putting out fires with a squirt gun: too little, too late. What you want to do is prevent the fire in the first place.

If your dog is doing something you don’t like, it’s very easy to go to your friendly neighborhood dog trainer and say, “Train Fido not to do X.” And for a long time, that’s what we did. How we did it was by training something else to replace behaviour X.

Thankfully, dog training is evolving. Now, we take a more holistic approach. This is partly why I specialize in puppies. Starting from a young age, build up the kinds of behaviour habits you want to see in your dog as he or she develops and you are much more likely to have a dog who never starts doing X.

It works for dogs of any age, however it just takes a little longer, depending on how old the dog is and his or her learning history.