Look at just about any dog-related site and you will see lists of ‘rules’. The rules on what you should be training your dog to do, how much time you should spend training, how you should train (there is one rule I state for how to train, and that’s to make sure you have a good supply of treats on hand – positive reinforcement all the way!). Finn, my dog is a herding breed - a Border Collie. He's a livewire, and can be challenging to be around sometimes as he gets wired very easily. There are certain situations that he finds incredibly exciting, and just cannot contain himself. I am forever being told that he needs training to be 'better behaved' in these situations. They are ones that don't occur often, (not often enough to become not exciting, which is the problem) and so we have a policy of simply managing these situations. We don't get into the situation, and so the problem doesn't arise. Why waste time and possibly frustrate us both to get him to 'behave' in a situation we don't actually need to be in? This is wandering from the point a little, but is also relevant to the thinking I have been doing of late.
