Obedience Do's and Don'ts

Above, don't let these be you. Information related to "obedience" appears throughout this website, because the skills necessary to train your Karelian will vary with the age of your dog and what you are intending to teach. Both the terms "obedience training" and "foundation skills" (the term most Search and Rescue trainers use) refer to a body of proficiencies your dog can acquire. As my handling skills have improved, I learned that if my Karelian is not performing the way I intend, it is attributable to a lack of handling expertise, not a deficiency in the dogs.

Right, can you find all three Karelians? By participating in organized group training classe, we provide our dogs with opportunities to socialize with other dogs and to practice the 3 basic training challenges:

DIstance - Expecting your dog to perform over longer distances provides more challenge.

Duration - Expecting your dog to remain in a stay position for longer periods of time makes the exercise more difficult.

Distraction - Expecting your dog to perform any skill in the presence of other people or animals is more difficult than when you and your dog are working alone.

Below is the training information that appears throughout this web site.

Socialization

Teaching your Karelian to be a good citizen should be a part of any training plan. If your dog exhibits aggression toward other dogs, your dog will not make a good Search canine. If your dog is fearful when surrounded by the hustle and bustle of city settings, traveling with your KBD will be inconvenient at best and potentially unsafe for your dog at worst. Right, even a quick trip to Starbucks can be used as a training opportunity.

Socialization can start at just a few weeks of age. You should continue socialization work consistently throughout the first year or so of your Karelian's life, gradually introducing your dog to unexpected animals, people and sounds. [more]

Encouraging Play Drive

We realized the importance of play as a result of our desire to do Search and Rescue training. We realized that developing a dog's natural motivation was an important key to training a dog to think through complex tasks. [more]

Even if Search and Rescue isn't your chosen pursuit, finding a victim, in its most fundamental form, is synonymous with hide and seek and fun for dogs of all ages, especially when success earns the Karelian lots of praise from you. [more]

Puppy Training

Like socialization, puppy training can begin at a few weeks of age and should continue literally for five to ten minutes a day, each and every day, for the first six months of age. The amount of time will vary, depending on the attention span of your dog at its current age. Consistency is key.

Right, when California Karelian's Star attended her first formal obedience class at 3 months of age, it was important to give her lots of praise, making the experience fun for her. [more]

Our Training Values

During all stages of training, it is important for you, as the dog's handler, to have the correct mental attitude. Nothing can stall training faster than to create training scars in your dog. These scars can result from correcting your Karelian too sternly or expecting your dog to learn faster than it is capable at its given age and past experience.

Dog Psychology

There is an art to communicating with any dog. If you were to watch two highly profient Search and Rescue handlers, I would bet you would detect differences in the ways they communicate with their dogs. Yet, both of their dogs may handle beautifully because the handler understand basic dog psychology. [more]

Handling Skills

Search and Rescue (SAR) is a form of fieldwork, the third and final training stage. Some owners will have no desire to even progress to these most challenging handling experiences. Preparing a dog for mission ready SAR status is a long-term commitment that requires a more sophisticated relationship with your dog than the mastery of basic obedience commands.

In the pursuit of more advanced handling skills, I find myself continuously learning. I share a few of the principles that I learned early on, in the hope that others may apply them to improve communication with their canines. [more]