Training obedience is like ballroom dancing.   If the tempo is Waltz, you glide smoothly with your partner on the dance floor and do the turns wrapped in each other arms.  If it's Tango or Cha-Cha-Cha, you twist and turn in unison (wriggling your bum just like what a dog does!).

Believe me, doing obedience with your dog resembles ballroom dancing than anything else.

What it cannot resemble is Judo or wrestling!  Many handlers seem to act and think that way.  They turn dancing into martial arts and obedience into a struggle of will, sort of.

Easier said than done.  May be.  

Here, I'll tell you why...and why not.

It is easier said than done because everything was NOT done right from the beginning.  Handler must get this straight--dog doesn't like obedience!  It's an unnatural activity for them.  Given a choice, they would rather run amok, smelling grasses and play with other dog and...be dog.

Once you begin to subject them to a series of exercise in disregard to their mood (and drive), you already introduce obedience in the wrong way.   The dog can smell compulsion right from the start.   And they tend to smell it every time you bring them to the training field.

Of course, you praise them and pat them just like what everybody else does.   "Good boy!" or " good girl!" you would say.  But in the dog's mind, their response is ,"I'm not your boy...and this dam thing is not good for me."  Believe me,  dog doesn't think like you.  And we have to learn to read them.

Things go wrong most of the time because no foundation has been laid or laid the wrong way.   From day one of obedience training, the dog has a poor impression about this activity and the training ground and all what's going on. 

By foundation training, I mean not the real training, but what the dog associate training with.  Above all, it must be something that's fun and something that satisfy its instinct.

That can be accomplished if the handler employs the instinctive behavior of the dog in training.  They are the three P's of obedience--play drive, prey drive and pack drive.  Here, I  will go over them briefly.

Can you turn work into play?  And can you mix play with work?   Obedience can be tedious or fun depending on how you approach it.

Prey drive.   
All dogs have prey drive, some more, some less.   All moves become animated if the dog is working in prey drive.   It must not be the result of subjugation to the trainer's will.

Pack drive.  
You're the pack leader and the dog is a pack animal.  Is the dog looking excited whenever it sees you or is with you the pack leader.

You've three tools to motivate your dog to its full potential--yourself, food and toys.

To convince the dog that this is fun, you've to feel fun yourself.   A low-spirited dog needs a lot of cheering up and simpler exercises.   Break the exercises up if it's too complicated.  Make it short.  Make it fun.

Food and toys are used as a reward and as a tool to guide the dog into the correct position.   Don't try to force obedience on the dog when the dog is NOT in drive.  When the dog associate training with tediousness, you've a problem on hand.  It should not be obedience, but a dance.   Remember!

Obedience is not about a series of suppressive exercises.  The dog must exudes energy and vitality.   Heard of a power sit or a power down or a racing recall.

When the foundation is laid right the attitude of the dog is good.  Then you can move on to training for attention and accuracy.

To have a happy dog, you must be a happy trainer.

Let's dance!

(Mr. Poompitak can be reached at Poompitak@Hotmail.com)