Canine Academy

On Tuesday 7th September, students in Year 6 (and their dogs) were invited to an optional session about Dog Training. The take home messages were:

• Dogs are wonderful observers, they can make connections, see relationships and draw conclusions…they are just like scientists.
• Dogs respond better to positive reinforcement (food rewards, toys, attention and praise) more than negative reinforcement….Just like us. 
• It is more effective to do short bursts of training regularly (e.g. 5 minutes of intense training each day than a longer session once a week)
• We explained the importance of teaching a dog that humans control the food and have the power to take it away and that should not be challenged by a dog. I demonstrated how this can be taught by using the ‘leave it’ strategy and how to reward a dog for being ‘patient’ when the food is ultimately returned.