It's Your Responsibility to
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This page is not going to go into detail on obedience training. You can find certified trainers in almost every town or by searching the web.
This page is, however, going to point out WHY you need to train your dog in at least the basics.
An out of control dog, either because of fright, the feeling it needs to defend itself or just from poor training, is a legal liability. If your dog hurts someone or another animal, YOU could wind up in court facing stiff fees or even jail time. Your pet could wind up being put down.
If Fido is out of your reach or ignores your commands, you don't have control. Even the most sweet tempered pet, if put into the right (or should I say wrong) situation, can be out of your control.
So what basic things should you train your dog to know?
- Coming to you on command.
- Staying in place on command.
- Sitting or laying down on command.
- Walking while on a leash.
This last one is of particular importance because too many pet owners do not consider it to be of importance!
Unleashed pets get hit by cars. Unleashed pets get in trouble with neighbors. Unleashed pets get in trouble with other dogs. In many cities, having your pet on a leash when off your property is a law even though it gets ignored most of the time.
When I was a young dog and being taught to walk on a leash, I would practically pull the arm off of my #1 human. I wanted to rush down the street and sniff everything. I wanted to pee on everything! I was in such a hurry, I pulled her around like a sonofagun. She finally had to put me on a training leash. One that prevented me from pulling by slightly restricting my front legs. It didn't hurt me and it helped me learn to stop pulling. Eventually, I learned to walk by her side on a regular leash.
However, one early morning while out walking during one of our exercise and training sessions, a neighbor's dog was out unleashed with her owner as usual. This dog felt that our street was HER territory and her owner refused to leash her since, in his mind, it was not fair to the dog and because, again in his mind, she was well behaved and he could control her at all times.
Guess what? He couldn't. His dog, Lucy, saw me and went into challenge mode. I was attacked. Unfortunately, because I was leashed, I couldn't move as well as the other dog so I took a lot of nasty bites before the aggressor was grabbed by her "surprised" owner. My human, who loves animals, wanted to kill the dog. If Lucy had been trained to walk while on a leash, the incident would not have happened. Because of this dog owner's indifference, I had to be taken to my vet, my owner was stressed to the max and he got stuck with an expensive vet bill. He could have been taken to court.
That's not the end of the story, about 10 months later, Lucy got hit by a car while out running the neighborhood. Her owner still didn't believe his dog should be on a leash. He still believed he had her under control. He didn't.
Train your dog.
Another reason for at least some obedience training is that dogs, by nature, are pack animals and there is always a dominant or alpha leader in any pack. If your dog is not taught it's place in the family "pack", he may think he is the dominant or alpha dog. If this happens, you are in for real problems and anyone around your dog will be in for problems as well. Teaching your dog to obey even the most basic of commands will often establish YOU, as well as your family members, as being higher up the authority chain than he is.
Obedience training is not unfair or mean. It shows you really care about your pet and about the people around him.
Sometimes... it's even fun.
