Online Dog Training Schools

About ten years ago we had a guy in town who knew about dog training, his own dog was one of the most well trained dogs I’ve ever seen. Birdie (the trainer) held free classes up at the oval and people who really cared for their pooches took them up and did the training. It was a great social tool, my brother and I had one good dog, and one bad dog!

The bad dog Sirius never really improved but in her old age now she still shakes hands before dinner but we don’t bother pushing her too much! Birdie left town many years ago and no one really puts as much effort into dog training as they should.

This online dog training school review will be very useful for you if you are not able to access a physical class for you and your dog. Online training schools are also great if you just have a few questions about training your dog that you need answered without going to the trouble and cost of signing up with a qualified dog trainer in your local area.

All dog owners long to have a pet who eagerly responds to our every command, and who knows how behave both in the home and out in public places. Or do they? Sometimes, although we think we want an obedient dog, we are in fact constantly rewarding the dog with laughter, attention and affection when he is mischievous. We may even love our dog for those particular qualities.

So if there is a behavior pattern that you really do want to alter in your dog, first be sure that you will not unconsciously undermine the training by rewarding him for being 'bad' in this respect. This doesn't mean that you have to stop loving him whenever he is naughty, but only in respect of this particular behavior pattern. For example, if you want to train your dog to stop chewing your shoes, you must act very cold with him when he does it.

In a physical class the instructor would watch your actions as well as the dog's, to check that you are not rewarding (or 'reinforcing') the dog for the exact behavior that you say you do not want. However, if you sign up with an online dog training school you will either need to do this for yourself or make the whole family aware of the issue and remind each other.

What You Can Expect

Internet dog training schools often offer different levels of membership. First there is free membership which will allow you access to certain areas of the site. For example, you may be able to read articles or receive information by email that is not available to a casual website surfer. Of course you will need to give your email address for this and the site provides this service so that they can stay in touch with you and hope that sooner or later you will register for their paid service.

Be cautious sites that require anything more than your name and email address at this stage. For free services they should not need a phone number, address etc unless they plan to call you or sell your details to somebody else - which you probably would not welcome.

Many membership sites offer a forum where you can interact with other dog owners who are interested in training. Some of them will be experienced and you are likely to find some professional dog trainers in these forums, so you can often get all of your questions answered. You may have to pay a small monthly fee for access to a good internet dog training forum, but it will be very reasonable compared with the cost of a personal dog trainer or group class.

In these forums you will also be able to ask any other questions about your dog that are bothering you, even if they are not related to training. For example you may have questions about health issues like vaccination or dog health insurance or legal questions as in many jurisdictions there are laws about dog owning that it is good to understand.

What To Watch Out For

When you are visiting these sites, look out for these signs. You may want to write them down and check off each one against each site that you find. They will be a great help to you in deciding which dog training website is the best one for you.

1. There are many great dog trainers out there who do not have top web design skills so do not judge a site solely on its looks. However, it is worth keeping in mind that a successful trainer who is focusing on his or her online service - which is what you want - should be spending some money on the website. If the website looks cheap or outdated, the owner is likely to be using the site to attract customers for a 'real-life' class and may not have much to offer you.

2. Can you trust the information that you are given? It is easy for people online (and in print) to gather testimonials from satisfied customers. Every business, even the most unsuccessful, has one or two satisfied customers! Look for people recommending the service on other websites, not only on the training school's own website.

3. Find the 'contact us' email address and ask them a specific question about your dog. A good training school will answer promptly and give you the information that you need. If there is no reply after several days, you should be suspicious about what you will get for your money.

The Bottom Line

Our advice is to find as many online dog training websites as you can and sign up for any free services that they offer. This will give you the opportunity to judge for yourself and select the best online dog training school for you and your dog.

Deaf Dog Training

I knew a girl a few years ago who’s dog had a litter of puppies, two of the puppies were deaf, she decided to keep one of them because she felt sorry for it and the other one was kept by her parents. None of the dogs got trained in any formal sense and the result was a headache for everyone concerned!

One of the puppies got destroyed after biting someone twice and the other one was discreetly relocated as a result of biting someone. It’s pretty hard to train a deaf dog but responsible dog owners will put in the effort of training their loved puppies.

People who need to know how to train a deaf dog are usually considering a puppy. You may have lost your heart to a rescue dog or a puppy that you saw, and then found out that it was deaf and you are wondering whether you will still be able to give it a home. Maybe your pet had puppies, and one of them is deaf. Or maybe you have a dog that has become deaf through accident or illness, and you are wondering whether you will still be able to train it and teach it new tricks.

The answer is that training a deaf dog is very simple, or at least, no harder than training a hearing dog. You just have to teach her to respond to body language and hand signals instead of your voice.

Signals used in dog training must be very clear. Start by picking out a signal for 'Yes' or 'Good dog'. A thumbs-up is a good clear signal for this, and you will easily remember it yourself.

You can begin the training by associating your 'Yes' signal with treats. When she happens to do something that you like and want her to repeat, give the 'Yes' signal and immediately give her a treat. This could be food or a toy.

Then you can move on to other signals, giving the new signal when she happens to do whatever behavior you want to reward, and then giving her 'Yes' and the treat. She will soon come to understand what each sign means.

You will need a way to get her attention. Stomping a foot on the floor can be good because she will often be able to feel the vibration even if she is not looking at you. Be sure to give the 'Yes' signal and the treat as soon as she looks around.

It is useful to have a visual signal for getting her to look at you too. You can use this to keep her watching you while you give the signal for another behavior. A wide movement of your arm bringing your hand up to your face is good for this. She will be able to see this from a distance. You will find that when she is running ahead on a walk, she will look back from time to time. You can make this signal to get her attention and then give the signal for 'Come here' to call her back to you.

You can buy a vibrating collar so that you can attract her attention even when she is out of sight on a walk. You carry a pager and 'buzz' her to get her attention. Once she is looking, you can give the 'Come here' signal to have her come back to you. Of course you must train her to respond to the collar first. You can do this at home by rewarding her for looking round at you when she feels the buzz.

You must be sure to always use the same signal for each command. Take care too that you choose something that is different from whatever gestures you may make in conversation or to communicate with other humans (for example, don't teach the dog to respond to the gesture that you make when waving someone hello or goodbye).

It is very important to be consistent in the messages that you are giving her. This is true of all dogs. If your hand signal (or your voice, with a hearing dog) is saying one thing and your body language or facial expression is saying another, the dog will be confused. So try not to signal your dog at the same time that you are telling your kids what you want from them. That is not how to train a deaf dog, and the kids will probably ignore you too!

How To Teach Your Dog Tricks And What Dog Tricks To Teach

We have the cutest Beagle cross Staffy I’ve mentioned her in a previous blog. She is so incredible, she knows many tricks but still uses them to get food, it’s actually that she has trained us! She can Sit, Jump, Lie down, Shake hands, Talk, Bark on command and can tell the other dogs. If you say “Kiss Grandma” she will go and kiss mum, and if you say “Kiss Aunty” she will come and kiss me.

The best way to teach your dog tricks is to practice little and often. Take one trick and practise it with her several times a day if you can. Don't move on to a different trick until she has mastered the first.

Keep each session very short because your dog will be become tired, especially in the beginning while she is trying to figure out what is going on. Be sure to always reward her when she does what you wanted. At first, you can give her a treat that you know she likes. Later when she knows the trick well, it is still important to praise her every time - even years from now.

Shaking Hands

This is a simple trick to teach. Have the dog sit in front of you, reach out your hand and then take her paw. If you have noticed that she is more likely to raise one paw than the other, pick that one. At the same time, give the command which could be 'Shake'.

After a few practices she should start to put her paw into your hand when you reach out and say 'Shake'. Reward her when she does this, then end the session and repeat a few hours later.

Some dogs cannot do this trick because they need both front paws on the ground for balance. If your dog is very unwilling to let you pick up her paw, you may have to forget it and move on to something else.

Catch

Again this is a very easy trick and a dog will often do it automatically. Choose a treat that is big enough to see, but not so big that the dog could choke on it. You want something they could swallow whole without a problem.

Let the dog see the treat or sniff it, then throw it in the air and say 'Catch!' The aim is for her to catch it before it hits the ground. When she does this, praise her. It may take a little time before she first does it.

With this trick, try to end the session with a 'failure' - that is, end it when she has let one fall on the floor. Otherwise she will learn that you throw her treats until she catches one, then you stop - so catching them is bad.

Stand And Beg

This is easier for smaller dogs, and unsafe with very large ones who may do some damage to themselves, you or your home if they lose their balance!

Have the dog sit in front of you. Let her see the treat then hold it above her head at a height where she will have to stand up on her hind legs to reach it. At the same time give the command, e.g. 'Beg'. You can hold her front paws at first to support her.

Make her continue a little longer each time before she gets the treat. That way her balance will improve and soon she will not need your support. Never tease her by taking the treat away.

Generally, younger dogs will learn more quickly. As the saying goes, 'You can't teach old dog new tricks'! But a young puppy may injure herself in frantic attempts to get her reward, so don't push too hard when you start to teach your dog tricks.

When Dogs Just Don’t Stop Barking

My eleven year old Dingo is tormented by thunder, we don’t get it all the time but when it happens she just won’t stop barking at it! When often end up with her on a chain in our bedroom while there’s a storm. She doesn’t seem too stressed, just won’t shut up!

I knew this girl who would have to beg the ranger every day because when she was at work her dogs wouldn’t stop barking and the neighbors kept complaining, she was lucky she didn’t get any fines which are a possibility in most towns.

Hearing a dog happily barking as it chases after a ball in the woods can be a wonderful sound, but if the neighbors are complaining and you and your family are suffering from having a dog that barks constantly that you cannot control, you will probably want to learn how to teach a dog to stop barking.

The first thing to consider is why the dog is barking so much. A normal puppy or young adult dog is like a baby in that it will bark when it wants attention or has a need, for example if it is hungry or thirsty, wants to poop or needs exercise. With most dogs, if you figure out what they want, you can supply it and that is the end of the problem.

But some dogs bark a lot more than this. Often it is because they are bored. This is most likely if they are either kept in the house alone all day when you are at work, or if they are not getting enough exercise.

In the case of exercise, maybe you are not able to walk a big dog as often or for as long as it needs it. You could be sick or not have time, or in some climates it may be difficult to get out a lot in winter.

Letting the dog in the backyard will probably not be enough. It knows the backyard too well and there are not enough new and interesting sights and scents to keep it occupied. Instead, consider hiring a dog walking service.

Some dogs will bark whenever they see or sense someone approaching. This is what is known as 'reactive barking': barking as a reaction to events.

If a dog barks reactively, it is often because the dog has learnt to act as a guard dog in the past. If you have an adult dog it could have been trained to do this from a puppy by a previous owner. Perhaps it used to live in an isolated area and was rewarded for barking whenever there was a noise outside. If you live in a city, this will mean a lot of barking!

If the dog is used to being rewarded for barking and has been specially trained to do it, it will not understand that you do not welcome the noise. In this situation you may have to consider finding another home for the dog - or moving out of town yourself!

Another possibility is that as a puppy it learned this behavior from adult dogs and has simply never been taught not to bark. In this situation you may have more success. You can train it to be quiet in the same way you would train it to do anything else: use the command 'Quiet!' and always reward for obedience.

Remembering to reward the dog for being quiet is difficult because it is a non-behavior: instead of doing something that demands your attention and a reward, like fetching back a ball, it is not doing something. It is easy for you to give a sigh of relief at the sudden silence and move on. But it is vital to remember the reward, otherwise the training will never be successful.

If the dog is alone in the house all day while you work, it is not surprising that it gets bored. Dogs love company and leaving a dog alone for 10 hours a day, as many people do, are sure to have an effect. If it wasn't barking it would probably be either tearing the furniture apart or becoming seriously depressed. So what can you do to stop your lonely barking dog from driving the neighbors crazy?

First, the dog walking service is something that you might want to consider in this situation too. You will need to find a service that you trust enough to give them a key to the house. Then they can come when you are not home, pick up the dog and take it walking. This will break up the dog's day and make it much more accepting of the times that it is left alone. You want to make sure that the service will walk the dog as close to the middle of the day as possible.

Other things that you can do to keep the dog calm while you are working:

- Close the drapes or shades. The best is to have shades or shutters that the dog cannot get behind. This will keep their focus indoors, so they do not look out the window barking at everything that moves outside. But this will increase boredom so it is not enough by itself.

- Get another pet, either a cat or another dog. Even an aquarium can help to keep the dog interested.

- Leave the TV on at a low volume.

A dog that barks at every little thing that happens, even when you are home, may have a problem - for example if it barks every time that you stand up or sit down. This is abnormal behavior and could be due to a difficult early life (especially if it is a rescue dog) or some physical condition or illness. You should see a veterinarian in this case, because you probably will not be able to teach the dog to stop barking by yourself.

Four Steps To House Training Your Puppy

This is a lovely topic that I know lots of people have to deal with. I had a friend who brought her cute little puppy over and while it was roaming through my house it did a little spot on the carpet in my hallway out of view of me. Since then every time I miss the signs that my dogs need to go they do their business right there! On that same spot! So annoying to say the least!

In this article we will look at how to house train a dog. Whether you have a puppy or an adult dog that is not behaving the way you would like, the method is the same. It is simply a question of teaching the dog to poop outside and not in the house!

1. If you are starting with a puppy, you will first need to establish how you reward good behavior. Usually this is done by saying 'Yes!' in an approving voice, and giving a treat. When the puppy understands that 'Yes!' comes with a treat, you can begin the house training.

2. Encourage the dog to go in the backyard any time he shows signs that he wants to use the bathroom. Just like us, dogs often urinate or have a bowel movement right after waking up or eating, during or after exercise and play, and any time anything exciting or stressful happens. So at these times, watch the dog carefully for signs that he is about to urinate or worse. Most dogs have particular behavior that they will always repeat. This may include circling around, sniffing the floor, squatting, etc.

3. When you have him in the backyard, stay with him and lead him to a particular place that you have picked out (or even better, a place that he has picked out himself and used before). Always go to the same place. Wait there with him. If he goes ahead and does his thing, you can speak praise to him while he is doing it and then reward him immediately that he is done.

4. If nothing is produced in the yard, have him come back in the house. Continue to watch him carefully and call him outside again as soon as he starts those pre-bathroom behaviors.

So those are the four steps - you can see how simple it is. But there are some more points that you should know before you get started.

- If you have an adult dog that was house trained but is now too sick to make it outside when he needs to go, you can put newspaper on the floor in a certain place. With a very sick dog you may want to have a place in every room. Then you will need to show him what it is for by picking him up and placing him on the newspaper every time that he looks like he is about to make a mess (or even after he has started). Be very gentle and reward him for producing his waste there. And don't leave your daily newspaper on the floor until after you have read it!

- If you have to leave the dog alone in the house while you are out, leave him somewhere that you will not mind if he makes a mess, and train him to use newspaper as above.

- Never punish or talk angrily to a dog who has messed in the house, or show that you are unhappy about the mess. This will not help at all. If he even understands why you are upset, he will just hide from you when he wants to do it, e.g. going behind furniture. Result: you never know when he is about to go so you have no chance of training him. Plus you will often have a bad time finding and cleaning up that hidden mess.

Please go ahead and bookmark this page so that you can often refer back to these seven easy steps while you put the method of how to house train a dog into practice.

A Guide To Walking Fitness By Andy Guides

So i guess you've all gatherred by now that i'm a bit of a walk-o-holic! well here is a good book for anyone else who enjoys a good walk for health.

Fitness walking is an excellent way to get in better shape, tone those muscles, lose some weight and achieve better health; however, without the right tools and information, it could take you years to figure out the secrets to successful walking fitness.

A Guide To Walking Fitness

Stop Stressing Out!

My Internet Business allows me to work from home, dealing with who i want, when i want. There's not much need to stress out lately! Except when I have an assignment due and I’ve been procrastinating! But maybe because I am more balanced now I see stress in others a lot more! Being around people like that stresses me out too!

I do know what it’s like to burn out though, when I was working away from home I spent every moment working and any extra was spent volunteering. I couldn’t afford my own place so I spent my entire time there house sitting for people which meant I would have to move around quite a lot. I lasted nine months in that lifestyle before my body had enough; the mind had already gone but being a person who can’t say NO I kept pushing myself harder and harder!

When I broke my back I decided that I better stop before worse happens and I came home to rest. That experience was the best thing that ever happened to me as since then I have been able to sense when I am getting stressed out and make a mental change to not let it get worse.

I’ve left jobs because the bosses expected way too much of me, (keep in mind that I am the type of person to give everything I’ve got!) and jobs that have started getting boring. That’s a kind of anti stress, when you feel like your wasting your precious time working for someone else!

So that’s why my present lifestyle of working on the internet from home suits me so well! I love it.

Here is A Guide To Eliminating Stress and Anxiety I though that you can use at night when you are having trouble sleeping, it may help you come to a similar outcome of satisfaction as I have achieved.

Not only does it include timely tips and advice understanding the factors that cause you stress, but also clues to help you zero in on and control key stress factors within your life. This comprehensive special report covers the following topics:

Is Your Personality Causing You Stress?
· Is your Relationship Causing You Stress?
· Is Your Organization Causing You Stress?
· Are You Stressed Out by Your Marriage?
· The Stress of Death
· The Stress of Mental Illness
· Stress on the Job
· The Stress of Pregnancy
· Stress and the First Year of Parenthood
· News Junkie Stress
· The Dollars and Cents of Financial Stress
· Driving Away Stress

A Guide To Eliminating Stress and Anxiety