Labrador Training

Some of the once popular methods for Labrador training (or any other dogs really) were quite frankly abhorrent: physical pain and intimidation (such as grabbing your puppy by the scruff of the neck and holding her down until she goes limp), or other inhumane methods like shock or pronged collars has fortunately fallen out of favor now that we know a bit more about dog psychology.

It’s now widely accepted among the vast majority of dog training experts that the most effective and humane way to train your dog is through positive reinforcement.

This is just a fancy phrase for what is actually a very simple theory: You simply reward good behavior and ignore behavior that you don’t want repeated.

While this is effective with just about any dog, a Labrador’s desire to please and above average intelligence makes this the perfect training method.
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We love going for walks, but we don’t like on leash walking… The humans are just so slow.

There’s all these lovely smells and big open spaces. It’s so fun! We just want to explore everything all at once. Sometimes we get so excited we don’t even know which way to go. The humans won’t let us lead though, they always show us where to go. We guess that’s ok though, since they are the alpha and they know the way.

Sometimes we just wish they can walk in a straight line… Every time we think we know where the humans are heading, they turn and go somewhere else. It’s so difficult to keep up with which way they want to go. Sometimes we think they might be lost.

At least the humans did let us of the leash for a bit. That was so awesome. We ran and ran until we found some cow manure. That was so yummy! Our humans were so nice, they let us have it all. They didn’t even want any! We think it was because they must have had supper already.

The humans were a bit silly as well. They kept letting us run and play, and then they would call us back and give us a few treats. Then they’d let us run and play again and call us back for one or two treats. Don’t they know that it would be so much easier to just give it all to us at the same time? Sometimes we just don’t understand humans. We know they aren’t as clever as us though, so we try to be patient with them.

Well, anyway, we have some playing to get done, so we’ll chat later.

photo credit: ZeePack