Dog Training with Larry Fine

This past Tuesday, December 9, Happy Hound Dog Resorts had the pleasure of discussing Dog Training with Larry Fine and how we should work with dogs as it pertains to dog training. Larry helped to educate us with the basic idea that dogs do not understand English. Hence they do not have personality, rather he suggests that dogs have “doggyality”. Larry goes into more detail about this method of dog training on his site and has a great video there as well. I encourage you to review it in detail.

Dog Training with Larry Fine

According to Larry’s idea of dog training, “Dogs need constructive tasks, they need to be sent to find things, working their body and minds as well”. A dog with too much pent up energy is not a good thing. Dog day care is a perfect place for a dog to have their mind and body worked, daily, if not weekly. Larry says that this creates ” a better, more relaxed dog.” It is a good idea for you to think about what you, as an owner are doing. Ask yourself why are you doing it. Same thing goes for your dog, think about what they are doing. Then ask yourself why they are doing it. Life is all about experiences, both for ourselves and also for our dogs. We want to encourage the right experiences and you can do this in your own dog training environment.

Dog Blocking

Larry does not use notes, so he “shoots from the hip”. He acknowledges as he “gracefully matures”, he may need to start writing down more of his content before he speaks. Larry, we are all in that boat my friend. An interesting topic discussed was dog blocking. When your dog is not doing something or you want to correct bad behavior, do not try and communicate with your dog with English, but instead, do so with your body, block your dog from the bad behavior, this is a much better method of dog training.

The way this is done is by YOU, the dog owner, staying calm, do not talk, observe the behavior, then move in front of your dog, so that the dog is focused 100% on you, the owner. If you are out in public, make sure the dog is on a leash, if the dog’s head wants to go around you, move its head back to you and you stay there in front of the dog, until the dog has relaxed and/or turned away from the behavior. Everyone can perform this simple type of dog training.

Reward calm relaxed dogs

We need to perform this dog training this in a silent manner. We do not want to speak after the behavior has changed. No need to say “good dog”, the dog learns through its experiences. It knows it was good, but when we speak, the dogs cannot understand English. So we risk confusing our dogs about the bad behavior. Conversely, one thing you CAN do. Once the dog has returned to a comfortable, relaxed position, say, “good sit”. You are re-enforcing the positive behavior, a good sit, much better dog training activity. We cannot use logic and reason with dogs. We are simply wasting our time. They learn through example and repetition.

Reward dogs only when they are stable and relaxed. We reward that stable relaxed position. See if you agree with Larry on his idea of Dominance. I content we dominate dogs mentally, not physically. We learned a lot in this dog training class, and we are hopeful we can work with some of our dog day care staff to practice some of these ideas, so if you hear a much more quiet dog day care floor, you will know that some of Larry Fine is always present at Happy Hound Dog Resorts.