How to develop contacts and mutual understanding with your dog.

      Coming home after a hard working day or after a long trip we are looking forward how your four-legged friend will meet us, full of joy and energy. It's a well known adage that if one has no dog he comes to a house, with a dog one comes home. Our dog is happy to see us - that means for him or her playing, walking, training. For most of us walking with a dog is rather relaxing. 

       A walk can be an excellent opportunity to develop mutual understanding with a dog. The key point is always to keep in mind that your are a leader. So, offer your dog games and exercises, play with your dog, train him/her, always trying to focus your dog's attention on yourself. Such a walk is enjoyably for both - a dog and a master!  

Roller Skating with a dog.

      There are a lot of variants how to enjoy your everyday walking with your four-legged friend. Recently we experimented with roller skates. If a skijoring exists, why roller-skatesjoring can not be tried? So, we tried it with my elder dog. It is very enjoyable! However, it'd be better to practice roller-skatesjoring, as we called it, with an adult well trained dog, who is well balanced and attentive to his master.
       I

Practical use of defense skills of your dog.

      Today a lot of people take puppies of German shepherd, malinois, Herder, etc. without any intention to develop their defense talents. I met dog masters who bought malinois only because they liked their exterior.If it is a  working  dog it is highly desirable to give him/her opportunity to develop the defense talent on the training ground. However, in real life there are a lot of situations when you can sharpen your dogs' skills. For example, you are in the street late in the evening. .. 

        This video shows how - while going with my dog to a bank and back home late in the evening - several elements of obedience and mondioring were applied.

Why Training our Dogs?

       When we take a puppy or a young dog we, being responsible dog owners, start thinking about educating or training them. The first step in this long and enjoyable (maybe more, maybe less) process is obedience. However, what is the goal of teaching obedience? Let’s think it over. For most dog owners the key sense of obedience is to make your life with the pet more comfortable and pleasant. There is no doubt that it is very convenient to walk in a park with a dog who quickly fulfils your command “come” or sits patiently while you talk to your friend. Of course, obedience disciplinises your dog. However, does it develop your dog? It is a big question.

There can be another attitude to obedience, and here again I’d like to refer to Mr.Kipling’s “We be of one blood, thou and I”, and put aside our anthropocentric attitude towards dogs (and animals as a whole). Every dog is a personality and has a lot of talents that we even do not see. Today it is a mainstream topic of a lot of publications. Alexandra Horowitz’s “Inside of a dog. What Dogs See, Smell, and Know” is one of them.

So, it seems better to treat obedience as only the first step for further education of your pet as well as a necessary element in helping your him/her in adaptation, for example, in an urban environment. Taking this as a starting point one will treat lessons on a training ground only as a basic minimum, developing various elements in practice, in real situations. For example, in a city it is very important to teach your dog how to cross streets. Do not doubt that a dog will understand very well the practical importance of commands “foot” and “sit”. 

  

Malinois. On the training ground

We be of one blood, thou and I

     The idea of  "to be of one blood" is rather complex and can produce fruitful results in man-dog communication and mutual understanding. It does not mean tto sleep in your dog's kennel, or to sleep with your dog in bed. However, the later is a very popular variant. As an example of improper behaviour of a master as well as of a dog - see below -  my malinois has a rest after a long working day. 

Shall we remember Kipling while training our dogs?

If we decide to have a dog we, as responsible masters, are quite aware that it is necessary to educate them, socialize them, train them. There are a lot of methods, instructions and ways for making our dogs well bred.

The starting point of all these practices is that we - as living creatures - are much more clever than dogs, and thus in a position that we can teach our dogs. This idea is going from the Christian concept that a human being is  the centre of the world. This philosophy developed deep roots in our mentality.

However, is it the only variant of creating relationships with our dogs. Is this variant undisputable and effective?