This week’s post is: 5 reasons to take a training class with your dog*.

We’re co-hosting this Blog Hop with DOGthusiast. The hop is the perfect place to discover what others are doing with their dogs or to let others know what you’re doing with your dogs.

You could be teaching your dog a simple sit; working with your reactive dog and looking for support that your dog will be able to walk past that neighborhood dog or kid without losing his or her mind; or maybe you want to know more about the human-animal bond.

All of that and more will be found on the Tuesday Training Tips Blog Hop. The Training Tips Tuesday welcomes all dog lovers and trainers-from the pet parent to the professional trainer to the dog enthusiast. More information on the guidelines for the blog hop can be found here.

Let me take a few moments to introduce you to your host-DOGthusiast.

Jen deHaan is the owner of Stylish Canine and the author of DOGthusiast.
Stylish Canine offers unique and customized items from dog collars and leashes to decals and t-shirts!
DOGthusiast is a dog-focused blog that covers many things dog from training and behavior to living with active dogs to high-drive rescues looking for their forever homes. DOGthusiast is also hosting a gigantic summer giveaway.

Jen is owned by and shares her life with an adorable Kelpix mix named Mort and his partner in crime-an English Shepherd mix named Tig. We met Mort at BlogPaws 2014 in May at Lake Las Vegas.

http://instagram.com/p/pAIgyRjrPP/
http://instagram.com/p/mWXM53jrFd

Now onto our 5 Reasons to Take a Training Class with your dog.

Terra has been attending an Advance Manners training class for the past month. Two weeks ago she graduated the class and received a certificate upon completion.

When Terra first joined me, this milestone would have been un-thought of! Terra was a major problem child.

She counter-surfed. She nipped people and herded them. She didn’t know her name. She didn’t know what a simple “sit” meant. She didn’t look to a person for direction. She made her own rules and played her own game. She chewed up anything and everything. She was an outside dog (i.e. she wasn’t house trained). Her attention span was nill. She was too smart for her own good and more often than not put her mind and energy toward mischief.

She was a terror.

But she was essentially an un-trained puppy in an adult dog’s body.

We have set to concentrated training and she has learned quite a few new tricks! Taking a training class is a wonderful thing and is highly recommended for people who want to train their dog and bond with their dog more. We think some form of training class should be mandatory for many first-time dog owners, or available for people who adopt dogs, but more about this will be discussed in a separate Blog Post.

Taking classes with your dog is beneficial for many reasons.

5 reasons to take a training class with your dog:

1. You learn to communicate with, read, and respond better to your dog
2. Your dog learns that you are fun and wants to respond to you
3. Play enhances your relationship and increases your bond, and training is just that-play time with your dog
4. Your dog learns to trust you and look to you
5. Your dog will become better behaved from the time invested together in training

And that’s really the ultimate goal, isn’t it? You want to teach your dog not to jump, not to bite, not to pull, to listen on command, to play, to fetch, and to be better behaved overall. Training classes are a great way to do this. Although you don’t have to take a class to do so-you can definitely train your dog on your own.

Join the Training Tips Tuesday Blog Hop

Do you have any certain accomplishments that you have achieved with your dog? It can be anything and it doesn’t matter how big or small it is! We’d love to read about, so please share and join the Blog Hop!

Here’s how:

• Grab the badge: Download (right-click to save) or Link to it using the following code, your choice!
  
  1	<ahref=“http://dogthusiast.com/about/training-tips-tuesday-blog-hop/”target=“_blank”><img src=“http://dogthusiast.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/training-tips-tuesday-200.jpg”alt=“Training Tip Tuesday blog hop about dog training and behavior”width=“200”height=“200”></a>

• Link to your hosts, DOGthusiast and Tiffany’s Diamond Dogs. For ease of use, copy this code (there’s a copy button in the top right corner of the code box!):
  1	Thispost ispart of the Training Tips Tuesday blog hop,hosted by<ahref=“http://dogthusiast.com”>DOGthusiast</a>and<ahref=“http://tiffanysdiamonddogs.com/”>Tiffany‘sDiamond Dogs</a>.

• Add your link to the hop! At the end of each Training Tips Tuesday, there will be a blog hop with a link to get the code (called “Get the Code”) – you can see this below!

Tiffany, Bella, Terra, & Kronos

*This article was originally posted on Cattle Aussies, but it seemed like the perfect introduction post for our new Tuesday posting series.