Dog Training

Ovidiu’s Dog Train­ing Philosophy:

Obe­di­ence dog train­ing is pri­mar­ily inhibitory in nature and is mainly con­cerned with pre­vent­ing the dog from act­ing like a dog. It restrains his impulses to roam and explore, to hunt and test his strength against other dogs. Good obe­di­ence dog train­ing depends upon cre­at­ing moti­va­tion in the dog and cap­i­tal­iz­ing on his eager­ness to please us.

Ovidiu’s train­ing method com­bines aspects of tra­di­tional dog train­ing and new, pos­i­tive rein­force­ment tech­niques.  Tra­di­tional dog train­ing depends on phys­i­cal manip­u­la­tion of the dog. In tra­di­tional dog train­ing, the han­dler uses unpleas­ant stim­uli to cor­rect bad behav­ior. For exam­ple if the dog breaks a “Heel” com­mand, he is cor­rected with a snap of the leash. Pos­i­tive rein­force­ment dog train­ing rep­ri­mands and rewards the dog through the use of pleas­ant stim­uli. The han­dler rewards the dog with a piece of food or a toy when the dog per­forms a cor­rect “Down Stay” and pun­ishes a bad “Come Sit” by refus­ing to praise, feed or play with the dog.

Both dog train­ing meth­ods are used at dif­fer­ent stages in the dog’s devel­op­ment and also at dif­fer­ent stages in the teach­ing of any given exer­cise. Pos­i­tive rein­force­ment dog train­ing meth­ods are used to intro­duce dogs to new skills and con­cepts. They are used, above all, in train­ing pup­pies and deal­ing with sen­si­tive adults. Tra­di­tional dog train­ing meth­ods are used when the dog has attained a pre­cise under­stand­ing of the skill expected of him. They are used to pol­ish the dog’s per­for­mance and make him absolutely reliable.

Puppy train­ing:

The first 6 months of a puppy’s life are of extreme impor­tance. This is the time when the pups must be prop­erly social­ized with humans and dogs or else they are almost cer­tain to become fear­ful and skit­tish as adults. The most impor­tant behav­ioral issue puppy own­ers should con­cen­trate on is socialization.

The puppy must be exposed to a broad range of expe­ri­ences and should start with a gen­tle intro­duc­tion to train­ing pro­ce­dures. The pups can learn to prop­erly walk on a leash, sit, lie down and play only with accept­able objects, as well as to over­come com­mon puppy prob­lems such as chew­ing, house train­ing, sub­mis­sive uri­na­tion or barking.

Using fun, play and pos­i­tively rein­forced tech­niques Ovidiu can estab­lish the foun­da­tion for for­mal obe­di­ence train­ing and help you to raise a happy, bal­anced, well behaved doggie.

Obe­di­ence training:

Ovidiu’s obe­di­ence train­ing lessons con­sist of 2 phases: the teach­ing phase and the proof­ing phase.

a) Dur­ing the teach­ing phase the dog learns and under­stands what we are ask­ing of him. All train­ing is done through pos­i­tive rein­force­ment and great effort is put into cre­at­ing a pleas­ant, play­ful and stim­u­lat­ing envi­ron­ment so that the dog enjoys his work. At this stage the dog stays with Ovidiu for a full 7 days. He will learn all obe­di­ence com­mands and the proper way to behave in most sit­u­a­tions. At the end of the week, the dog goes home and we start instruct­ing the owner. When the owner of the dog reaches the nec­es­sary skill and under­stand­ing of the whole process, the dog can advance to the next train­ing phase.

b) Dur­ing the proof­ing phase we increase the strength of the dog’s habit by ask­ing him to per­form in unusual, dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. The dog learns to gen­er­al­ize the lessons he has learned, apply­ing them to other sit­u­a­tions. He learns to respond off-leash to voice com­mands or hand sig­nals, from short and long dis­tances. We also work on improv­ing reac­tion time and reli­a­bil­ity of exe­cu­tion. The lessons take place in a nearby park, dog run or on the street, pro­gres­sively adding more dis­trac­tions. At this stage, most of the han­dling is done by the owner and her full coop­er­a­tion is essen­tial.
 

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Dog Trainer Rates

 

	Puppy Train­ing	Obe­di­ence Training	Advanced Obe­di­ence	Behav­ioral Training
Dura­tion	1 hr session	7 days + 3 sessions	1 hr session	1.5 hr session
Rates	$75	$1600	$100	$150