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Typical dog training
classes consist of a group of dogs
and their owners attending weekly classes.
Because owners' needs and wants differ, and
dogs themselves are individuals with
different temperaments, dispositions and
personalities, class material is limited to
items common to all owners. Dogs can
also have different aptitudes, even if
they're the same age, because of what each
dog
has, or has not, been exposed to during the
normal course of their lives. For this
reason, the material covered is almost
always very basic.
While it's true
that, by virtue of being a group
environment, classes have certain elements of
socialization built-in, trying to combine
socialization with training can backfire and
actually set dogs up to perceive training as
negative. Consider, for example, a dog whose
first training exposure is a group environment.
Upon seeing other members of its own species,
the dog is likely going to want to
immediately investigate the other dogs. Not only
does creating the desire to instantly interact with
other dogs instill a bad habit in the dog, the owner
must then restrain the dog from interacting with
the other dogs which subsequently creates the perception
in the dog's mind that training is no fun. In
essence, training starts off on a negative
foot, which is the exact opposite of what we
want to happen! This is one reason why we separate
training from
socialization sessions altogether.
To try to
compensate for these issues, some training
companies offer different levels of classes
such as basic, intermediate and advanced
classes. The trouble with this approach is
that not only do owners waste valuable time
taking course after course, when they
finally do get to upper-level classes they often end
up spending most of their time trying to overcome the
bad habits they inadvertently taught the dog
in the basic level class! Additionally,
in puppies, there's a finite window of time to shape
desirable behaviors and prevent bad habits
from forming. Attending a series
of group courses results in owners missing
out on this prime window of opportunity that
once closed can never again be reopened. (For
more on this topic, click here.)
If your
dog reacts negatively towards other dogs or
people, group training can easily be more detrimental
than helpful. That's not to say that reactive
dogs are all incorrigible; we're merely
stating that other training options would be
more suitable and effective. Sometimes dogs
react negatively to people, other animals,
objects, situations, etc. that they're not
familiar with, so if your dog has not previously been properly
socialized and/or desensitized to a wide
variety of stimuli and environments, you
don't want to flood his or her senses to the point where he or she
reacts fearfully or aggressively to an unfamiliar
situation. It would be smarter to instead
acclimate a reactive dog to training in a
more appropriate environment first, then
potentially introduce him or her to a group environment
later. After all, how fair would it be to
subject a dog to trying to learn while it's
being overwhelmed by an environment to the
point of reacting negatively?
These are only a few of the reasons that
we developed our one-on-one
Phase
Training Program.
You and your dog will learn much more in a
shorter amount of time, and in a more
appropriate setting, than a group class. In
fact, people often tell us that they learn
more in just the first session of a Phase
Training Program than they learned in all
the classes they've taken over their entire
lives! That says a lot, and is why we no
longer offer group obedience classes.
Barring extenuating circumstances, by the
end of a Phase Training Program, owners
typically have dogs that are solid and
reliable, even amidst high distraction such
as other dogs.
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