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Originally Posted by Kratty  • Did you take formal obedience classes or train yourself. How many classes did you take? Do you still continue to train when not in class? |
We enrolled Red in a beginner class at Petco when he was 14 weeks old. He by far the best behaved and most well-trained dog there (we had already mastered sit, down, sit/stay, down/stay). He loved the class because he got to play with all the other puppies, but other than the socialization with the other dogs, I got pretty much nothing out of it. I won't go back for the intermediate class there. There is another obedience program that I'm thinking about doing with him, but it's MUCH more expensive... still have to try to con hubby into it...
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Originally Posted by Kratty •How important/beneficial is obedience training to you for this breed? |
Very important. You HAVE to be able to control such a large, strong dog.
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Originally Posted by Kratty •Where do you train outside of classes? (backyard, walks, public places) |
Mostly the backyard, but also on walks, in the pet store, vet office, or any other place he goes with us. I try to do it in a variety of environments with varying levels of distractions.
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Originally Posted by Kratty •How much time do you spend in a training session? Do you find it easy to train a male or a female? Do you think a doberman is easy to train compared to other breeds? |
About 5 minutes at a time, a couple times a day. Red is our first dog (that we are training ourselves from puppyhood), so I don't really have anything to compare, but I personally think Red is very easily trained. He would train even faster if I knew what I was doing half the time!
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Originally Posted by Kratty •What type of rewards do you use, if any? (food, toy, praise) Do you use any special training aids? (leashes, clickers, etc) What methods of training do you use? |
Food rewards - hard treats, soft treats, and cheese. I haven't tried hotdogs yet, but Red is extremely food driven and would eat dirt if you offered it to him.
Also lots of verbal praise. I use "good boy" a lot which he is getting to recognize as a release command (along with "ok"), so I have to be careful not to say "good boy" until the right time anymore!
I just bought an Easy Walk harness for practicing walking without pulling, which has worked well so far. I have no need to use choke or pinch collars.
I just bought a clicker today and am just working on the association of clicker = cookie, so we'll see how that goes...
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Originally Posted by Kratty •What have the rewards/accomplishments been since you started training your doberman? |
No titles yet - though my goal is to do CGC with him.
I guess my biggest reward/accomplishment is that everyone tells us that Red is the most well-mannered and well-behaved puppy they have ever met!
