"just a dog"

[Discussing Labradoodles & Goldendoodles]

I have a beautiful 3 month old GD named Kizmet.  I love her and can tell she is very smart.  She is great with my kids and is not very distructive yet.  I see everyone with their comments about training and how important it is.  I have never owned a puppy before and all of my childhood dogs were mutts and given to my family.  I Loved them! they didnt do special tricks but they were wonderful, they listened and they knew the standard comands.  My Husband had the same experiance so he does not want to pay for our puppy to take classes (even though we have the means to do so) because he has no problem with Kizmet being just a great dog.

I do what i can but potty training has still not been mastered although i know it is close.  She has sit and off pretty well but still needs work.  I feel like I could be better but all in all i think she is turning out pretty great.  my one complaint is that she choses when she wants to listen to me calling her or not....

 

Does she really need special training to be like my childhood dogs? Or am I shorting her on needs by not making her the smartest, graduate from every class offered? 

Thanks!

Holly

 

 

[Maryann,Roo and Tigger]

I think it depends on the dog's temperment and what the family expects from the dog.  In addition it depends on the expertise and consistency of the family members.

Roo would have been a difficult dog without some help training him.  He is very high energy, very distractable and very joyous -for joyous read:  would love to climb in your "lap" and be held while you are standing.  Roo weighs 55 pounds.

Tigger, without Roo's influence would have been easily trained to be a good house dog and even a good dog on a leash without any training help. 

My husband is very willing in theory to help train, but not consistent in practice, nor very experienced in spite of the fact that Roo and Tigger are our 6th and 7th dogs.

I have had more experience than my husband, am more consistent by nature and also because the bulk of the training falls to me.   I have had experience with several trainers and learned a lot.  For me training with a class causes me to work more consistently and persistently. 

All that said, our first four dogs had no training other than ours and were excellent house dogs.  Not all were such good leash dogs although 3 of the 4 were passable on a leash. 

Dog #5 was like Roo and I had a lot of training help with him.  He was always "the bad dog" in every class.  He loved life and tried to live every moment to the most.  It was a lessen in humility for me if nothing else, but I also got him good enough to walk in tandem with our older dog.  It took a while! 

So I do think it is a bit early to say definitely you will not use a trainer.  The earlier, beginning now, you teach your dog to listen and respond to your voice and body language the better the dog will behave its entire life.  Everyday reenforce basic commands and every other or every third day add a new one.  Make it fun and short.  All puppies will begin to not respond if they don't feel like it somewhere between 6 months and a year.  Then just when you think they are finally done at about eighteen months they become teenagers and can be wonderful and non responsive to naughty in the same 60 seconds. 

Enjoy Kizmet's puppyhood and don't rule out a good trainer, you might enjoy it, especially if Kizmet is the star of the class. 

[Lori, Rooney & Zuzu]

I do understand what you mean about your childhood dogs, I feel the same way when I look back on mine.  However, when I really think about it, I realize that my memories are fuzzy and I do seem to recall that even those "good dogs" had quite a few bad habits.  

Part of the difference for me is that our life is so much different than it was for me as a kid.  We lived in rural Spokane and our dogs rarely left our home or yard (which was a full acre, fenced in).  They didn't really need to interact well with anyone other than our family and the visitors who came to our house.  We did so much running around our yard with them that I'm not sure they ever want on a formal "walk" in their lives.

But now, with my own family, we live in the city.  Rooney has to be walked which means he needs to be able to pass dozens of people and dogs without any problem.  Rooney also spends much more time indoors than my childhood dogs did.  We enjoy taking Rooney with us to the park, in the car, and anywhere else he is allowed which is going to require a level of manners I'm not sure my childhood dogs possessed (because we didn't do that with them). So, I guess for me I just realize that being a "city dog" who is going to be in daily interactions with other people, dogs and unfamiliar places, I feel like he needs training.  And, as I said before, while I could likely do it myself with the help of some good books, being in classes keeps me consistent. Already I feel myself slipping in my consistency of training now that Rooney's Beginning Obedience class has ended.  

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

Holly, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but you should join the training group. I posted a discussion there on what I learned in my way over priced recall class. I wish I could have gotten the info on the net, as it worked really well for me and Sophie.

[Doris]

We got Bodi when he was 2 (now almost 6).  I WISH we had gone to training, especially now when I see that my neice's service dog is SO well trained!!  If Bodi takes off after a cat I have to chase him down. (not easy) Training is important so I suggest you do it!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I agree with all this great advice.  I too had a childhood dog, and "back in the day" we didn't do any formal training....actually as I think about it we didn't do any training at all.  He was our family dog, and we loved him....but he was not well behaved.  He was a barker - he was a "car chaser" - he was a jumper- he never went on any good walks because he was horrible on a leash - he stole human food any chance he got - he went straight to the basement when my parents had "guests" because he didn't know how to act around strangers.  Thinking back on it we really loved this dog, and he was an important member of our family for many years.....but because we never took the time to teach him how to "be a great dog" he missed out on a lot.  He spent his time either in the house or in our fenced back yard.  He would "bolt" out the door any chance he got and he would not come back.  I spent many hours with my Dad driving around trying to catch this dog and fearing that he would be hit by a car.  This was a regular event in our house.  It's amazing that he wasn't killed.  So I do think about how much better things would have been for him and the entire family if he had been trained.

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I always like to say that I had no idea how dog stupid I was until I started taking formal training classes with our girls.  Like you, growing up we always had dogs and as a married couple we had a Toy Poodle for 15 years.  None of them ever went to any sort of formal training and we all coexisted quite nicely.  The difference is that we now have two large dogs and they are in the house, we now travel with our dogs on long road trips requiring hotel stays, we now take them pretty much every where we go and they are required to behave in public, I now do Pet Therapy with them, so the requirement for both of us to understand how to obtain appropriate behavior as well as understand the signals that other dogs are giving to my dogs has been invaluable.  So, like everyone says, the choice is yours and is completely dependent on what your ultimate desires are to all live happily ever after.

[Kaytlin and Cooper]

i did not take cooper to puppy classes (we did not have a car to get there, or the money to pay for classes) but i did ALOT of training at home. tricks, and obedience. She can be strong willed, but she is the most responsive dog to commands that  know (which doesnt necessarily mean much as alot of people dont train their dogs much).

I bought the "puppies for dummies" book and found it really useful. Also "the other end of the leash" is great for learning how dogs communicate,  so you can communicate better with them