Posted by Deakster on December 28, 2009
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We have been in the process of moving our sites to a US based server, as opposed to the UK based servers they were being hosted on. While we have nothing against the UK servers, this was done primarily based on cost, convenience and overall performance.
In the past, this site was hosted on a largerly shared server. Now the site resides on better servers with considerably less sites.
This has given the site load times a considerable boost in performance. The change took place over the holiday weekend, as I hope you all spent time with your families instead of being online all weekend. 
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Posted by Deakster on March 2, 2009
Training your dog is a long and rewarding process. By teaching your dog to obey you, you are skyrocketing the standard of life for both dog and master.
As with any healthy relationship, both parties need to develop a knowledge of who is the boss, what their expectancies are, and so on.
Imagine having the ability to take your dog out for a stroll without being jerked around on a leash. Telling your dog to ‘stay’ and knowing that you will not have to keep your leash handy. Imagine letting your dog play with the children and knowing that no-one will need a band help or disinfectant later. When it comes to dog coaching, psychology is simple.
By rewarding good behavior, your dog will learn to enjoy obeying you, and to associate good feelings with good behavior. Likewise, your dog will learn how to dodge bad behavior, and all the headaches that would cause you, and, indirectly, your dog. That’s all there is to it.
Giving your pet rewards is a pretty pretty straightforward process – You either heap praise on the dog, give a radical petting, or give a treat, for doing good things. Care should be taken not to go overboard. If you find that you hate the idea of over-feeding your dog, you may use a strategy called ‘clicker coaching’ to accomplish the same goals.
Trained pets do not need to be able to jump through hoops, they simply need to listen when their told, and do what they are told. Through good praise, use of treats and toys, and a caring trainer, this can be accomplished with time, love and patience.
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Posted by Deakster on February 27, 2009
Many people do not understand how their voice affects what their dogs do. When you are commanding your pet to do stuff, a loud squeaky voice is not the right one to use. Dogs don’t reply well to hesitant, pleading voices, nor to screaming, which might sound to the dog like threatening barking or scolding. Best is a firm, but not yelling tone of voice.
It’s also vital the word being used for the command and the pitch of the voice be consistent everytime the command is delivered so the dog can less complicated learn what the owner means ( siiiiiiiiiiiit does not sound the same as sit, for instance ). Using the puppy’s name before a command guarantees the dog knows a command is coming, that it is for him ( instead of for other dogs, youngsters, or folk ), and he should listen.
To reinforce the command, the dog always gets some sort of reward or reinforcement ( praise and usually a treat or toy ) when it performs the action in the correct way. This helps the dog to understand that he has done a good thing. Many working breeds of dog are no longer trained to a voice command at all, they are taught to obey a mixture of whistles and hand signals.
Deaf dogs are completely capable of learning to obey visible signals alone. A lot of obedience classes teach hand signals for common commands as well as voice signals, these signals can be helpful in quiet eventualities, at a distance, and in complicated obedience competitions.
The particular command words are now not critical, though common words in English include sit, down, come, and stay. In reality, dogs can learn commands in any language or other communication medium, including whistles, mouth sounds, hand gestures, and so forth. This can become a blessing if your pet refuses or has problem with one word, you can actually replace them if needed.
Remember that both HOW and WHAT you say to your pet will make a considerable difference in your pet training.
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Posted by Deakster on February 11, 2009
I am about to break a myth that has been around the dog training circuit for some time.
The myth is that you will “have a perfectly training pet in “X” number of Steps”.
The truth of the matter is that training your pet does require time, effort and multiple, repetitive training sessions.
Take a minute to think about the steps. Each step is one basic training lesson. Even washing your hair in the morning has several “steps”. Wet hair, lather, rinse and repeat.
I know that if training my dogs was as simply as saying “Sit, Stay, Good” and I was done, then I would have done so a long time ago. Even as a trainer I sometimes would rather be doing something else instead. Heck I like to watch TV, sit and read a book, or even post to my sites.
However, training a dog properly does take time. So do not get discouraged when you read headlines that claim your dog will be trained in a few steps. Just realize that each one of those steps does include sub-steps that must be performed.
If you think of “Sit” as one step, “Stay” and another step, “down” as a third, then yes you too will have a dog that is well trained once they have completed your version of the “x(1,2,5,12, whatever) step program”.
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Posted by Deakster on December 3, 2008
One of the most common concerns readers ask us is at what age they should start training their puppy. Because of this we are going to take a minute to discuss the major concerns of how a puppy differs from a mature dog, and what type of training you are doing.
One generally accepted notion is that no dog is “too young” to begin learning (not sure how the “old dog, no new tricks” bad rap got started). Puppies after all will explore starting as early as they can. This is their way of learning their surroundings. The problem is, how fast they learn, or what they will learn depends entirely on what exactly you want to teach them.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
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