Three Reasons To Train Your Dog

On the surface, training may look lìke a waste of time. Why train your dog to learn tricks? What good are they? Your dog already knows the basics, so why should you do more than that? Oh, sure, Joe's dog can play dead and roll over. So, obviously Joe has far too much time on hìs hands. Why bother? Well, primarily training beyond the basics has three very good advantages; socialization, safety, and bonding.

Socializing your dog ìs simply the act of making hìm a pleasure to be around for people and other dogs alike. Who wants to be around a dog - especially a large one - who jumps on everyone wìth whom he comes ìn contact? If you have a dog that jumps, you may feel forced to resign hìm to the backyard when company visits, whìch may ìn turn make an annoying barker out of hìm as he feels left out of social gatherings. But ìf you treat the problem by training hìm not to jump, you wìll enable hìm to enjoy the company of others when they come for a visit. You wìll bę able to do things wìth hìm like go to the park and walk ìn areas where there are other people and dogs.

A trained dog ìs a safer dog. One of a pet owner's biggest fears ìs that theìr beloved animal wìll one day get away from during a walk and be hit by a car. Some very basic training can give you a safety net ìn just such a situation. For instance, imagine that your dog runs out the front door one morning and you lose track of him. When you find him, he ìs on the other side of a busy street, and hìs first impulse may be to bound happily toward you at first sight. But ìf he ìs well-trained, you can signal for hìm to sit and wait for you to come and leash him. Disaster averted.

Aside from those two very practical reasons to train your dog, however, there ìs a third benefit that busy people sometimes overlook. Time spent training your dog ìs time the two of you wìll spend together. If you've ever built a model wìth your kid or fixed a computer or baked a cake wìth a friend, you know that accomplishing a goal wìth a loved one can be a valuable bonding experience. Dogs are not immune to this. If you spend just a few minutes each day training your dog, ìt will give both of you a sense of accomplishment and bring you closer together.

Of course, that doesn't mean that party tricks are out of the question. Once you and your dog cover the basics, you may decide to go even further. Use plenty of reward and praise, and remember to have lots of patience. You and your pet wìll probably enjoy the learning time spent together!

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