It used to take me up to a week to teach my dog something
I started training my first dogs in 1977. While living at home I never had a dog, so at the time I started everything was new to me. I found that I was very enthusiastic, but that it was not always easy. I was already happy if I had taught my dog something after a week of hard training.
In the meantime I am over 40 years further on and have a lot more experience now. In these years I have developed a system whereby I now sometimes achieve results in just one session of 10 minutes, where in the past I needed at least a week.
Positive training without corrections
The key of the system is that we train in a positive way. We let the dog learn from his own behavior and we reward this behavior. We do not use corrections, because you cannot punish a dog for something he does not know yet. The dog will become stressed and afraid to make mistakes.
By training this way we often see immediate results within one training session. Nowadays, we teach our dogs to search for and point to a small object within one week. Also the basic training for detection work or learning obedience exercises, can be learned very quickly with this method of training.
The foundation of detection work in less than 1 week training
This system works for dogs of any age
In training most of the dogs we have trained, we started when the dog was still a puppy. We then take full advantage of the most important learning phase of their lives. The puppy learns and develops very quickly because the puppy has not yet learned or experienced anything else. Everything is new to the pup and it learns very quickly from its own behavior.
Yet this system works not only for puppies, but also for older dogs. During one of our last seminars in Colorado, one of the participants wanted to learn tracking in our system, with her 2 dogs both 10 years old. In the first 2 days, we taught her how to teach the indication behaviour to here dogs. Again in a positive way, with rewards, where the dogs learned from their own behavior.
After we had trained this for 4 sessions at the seminar and she had trained this in the evening in her own time, on the 3rd day she was able to walk a short track with both her dogs. At the end of the track, both dogs found the object which was then neatly indicated by both dogs. A great result of course in only 3 days of training, for 2 dogs who are 10 years old and had no experience at all with tracking.
This result was only possible by training in a positive way. This made the dogs open to learn without the dogs feeling stress or pressure. They learned from their own behavior, which was then immediately rewarded every time.
A 10 year old dog, trained for only 3 days for tracking in our system
This system works on every level
We also use this method for our dogs that we train at the highest level. Such as tracking dogs for national police organisations, which are used in serious crimes and biological traces must be accurately run. But we also use this method for dogs that we train to search for narcotics or explosives.
Of course, there are many other ways and systems to teach a dog something. But for us it is clear that the system we have developed is the most fast and effective way. Everything is taught in a positive way, without stress. Because of this the dog learns very quickly from his own behavior and you get immediate results!
And best of all: Anyone can apply this method and it works for every type of dog of every age! Â Â
