DSD Training Videos

Lunging, growling dogs can be helped, but they need positive interactions with other dogs.  Don’t stop socializing your dog because they’ve begun to act anti-social.  That’s when you need to focus on extra socialization.

Ian describes the well-worn path from cute and cuddly puppy to abandoned shelter dog.  If you get a puppy, it’s your responsibility to train it!

Practice grabbing or recalling your dog when their distracted in a play session.  If you can’t control your dog when they get excited, they can get into dangerous situations very quickly.

If your puppy doesn’t learn to enjoy having their collar grabbed, you’ll end up with a dog that runs circles around you, which makes for a lot of potentially embarrassing or dangerous situations.

Puppy problems are serious business.  If you don’t take the time to properly train your puppy with basic manners, there’s a good chance they’ll end up at a shelter.

Dogs jump up to say hi and express affection.  It would be cruel to respond to their affection with painful corrections.  It’s far easier to train your dog to do something else when they meet people.  Something that they can’t do while jumping up.  But what could that something be…?

Puppies learn very valuable social skills during their play sessions, with the most important being bite-inhibition.

Training your puppy to enjoy having their collar grabbed is very easy.  Simply go up to them, grab their collar and give them a treat.  And hold onto that collar when you’re not paying attention, otherwise they’re going to run off.

Aggression is largely fixed with a solid sit-stay.  A sitting dog can’t really be very aggressive.  This makes “SIT!!!!”  an excellent reprimand for aggressive behavior.

Every time your dog performs an unacceptable behavior, it self-reinforces a bad habit.  The use of confinement training in puppyhood is going to result in greater freedom for the rest of their life.  Confinement allows you to supervise them anyime they’re free, and redirect bad behaviors into good ones.

The dogs and owners in this video have only been to 8 puppy classes.  The vast majority of their training took place at home, thoroughly incorporated into daily life.  Big thanks to them and to everyone who made these videos possible!

Praise your dog for acting calmly around other dogs.  Loudly reprimand them if they lunge, bark or tighten the leash.

You can’t fully train a dog with positive methods alone.  You need to be able to tell your dog when it’s misbehaving, but there’s no need to be nasty about it.  Simply make them sit.

Children can be scary to dogs. Its very important that you take the time to condition your dog to enjoy children and all of the silly things that go with them.

Anti-social dogs need time and energy.  The best way to help them is with persistent and positive socialization sessions, and a rock-solid sit-stay.

Take your dog to new and interesting places and hand feed them with their dinner or special treats.  Your dog will become much calmer and more confident.

Walks can be very exciting for dogs.  It’s important to give them time to adjust to new surroundings, with praise and treats as reinforcement.

Socialization is a never ending process, just because you socialized your puppy well doesn't mean you can neglect them when they get older. Take your dog on walk and trips to the park.

If you enforce strict rules with your toys, then they can be valuable tools in training. This is especially true with a tug toy, which can be lots of fun, assuming you maintain control of the play...

Any active game like Keep-away should have very strict rules. Your dog should release the toy on command and come when called.