We want your greyhound to feel good about training, for you to enjoy learning how to communicate with your hound, for it to be practical, effective, and to help your hound thrive in a pet home.
Training, when done properly, is one of the biggest investments you can make in your dog:
- Bringing a dog into your home means you are responsible for training them how to adapt to human culture, while still providing outlets for their natural behaviour.
- Having a well-mannered dog enables you to take them more places with you, they have more freedom and their lives are more enriched.
- It provides a way to communicate between the two of you using verbal cues and hand gestures and observing body language.
- Dogs enjoy learning and it strengthens your relationship.
Check out our behaviour and training resources online and please do get in touch with the team if you have any questions. We have also put together some myth busting ideas in regards to Old-School dog training here.
Our expectations on pet dogs is huge and when you take your greyhound home, they have a lot of new things to learn just in your house. New people, new sights, smells and sounds and often other pets. This is a lot for a dog to learn about and often when they first arrive, they will be feeling very stressed and anxious so our first steps must be allowing them to settle in the home. It will take at least three days for your new greyhound’s stress levels to come back into normal ranges where they are able to process new things rather than just react to them.
Our expectations on pet dogs is huge and when you take your greyhound home, they have a lot of new things to learn just in your house. New people, new sights, smells and sounds and often other pets. This is a lot for a dog to learn about and often when they first arrive, they will be feeling very stressed and anxious so our first steps must be allowing them to settle in the home. It will take at least three days for your new greyhound’s stress levels to come back into normal ranges where they are able to process new things rather than just react to them.
Encourage behaviours that you like and make them more likely to occur by rewarding them. You can do this with treats, playing, a game with toys, pats, verbal praise, access to things the dog wants like going out the door or being allowed to sniff and explore.
Prevent the dog from engaging in behaviours that you don’t like, you can set them up for success by managing their environment. For example, keeping the dog on a lead or in a crate rather than unsupervised around the dinner table so they don’t sneak some food, or leaving them in a dog proofed area with things they’re allowed to chew, rather than unsupervised with free run of the house with all manner of things to put in their mouths.
Before you start training:
- Make sure your dog has access to water and has had an opportunity to go to the toilet.
- Keep training sessions brief, even just 2 minutes while the kettle is boiling! Several 5-minute sessions over the course of a day will be much more beneficial than a long one.
- Remember to take breaks, for a play or a cuddle and assess your dog’s body language to see how they are feeling and if they are enjoying themselves or under too much pressure to learn.
- Prepare some tasty high value treats such as small fingernail sized pieces of chicken, cheese, ham, sausage, dog roll e.g. Possyum, dried lung, liver, or even kibble soaked in sardine oil or chopped apple, carrot or banana. Experiment and see what your dog prefers.
Training with a clicker/marker word:
You can make training clearer for the dog by using a marker word like “yes” or a clicker to pinpoint the exact behaviour you like, so that the dog knows exactly what it is they are being rewarded for. You could think of it a bit like a shutter on a camera taking a photo of the desired behaviour. For example, if you are training a dog to leave a treat on the floor covered by your hand, they may be sniffing trying to reach it, but the second they move away, even a centimetre, you click or say “yes” and reward them with a separate treat. This way the dog knows that their behaviour of moving ever so slightly away was what earned them that reward.
The first steps when bringing a new dog home are to build a secure and strong attachment and integrate them slowly into their new surroundings. Any fear or anxiety related behaviour while the dog settles in is completely normal and a degree of stress is to be expected. Almost all hounds have lived rurally in kennel environment for their whole life and there will be so many ‘firsts’ they’ll need guiding through.
Intro
We want your greyhound to feel good about training, for you to enjoy learning how to communicate with your hound, for it to be practical, effective, and to help your hound thrive in a pet home.
Training, when done properly, is one of the biggest investments you can make in your dog:
- Bringing a dog into your home means you are responsible for training them how to adapt to human culture, while still providing outlets for their natural behaviour.
- Having a well-mannered dog enables you to take them more places with you, they have more freedom and their lives are more enriched.
- It provides a way to communicate between the two of you using verbal cues and hand gestures and observing body language.
- Dogs enjoy learning and it strengthens your relationship.
Check out our behaviour and training resources online and please do get in touch with the team if you have any questions. We have also put together some myth busting ideas in regards to Old-School dog training here.
Our expectations on pet dogs is huge and when you take your greyhound home, they have a lot of new things to learn just in your house. New people, new sights, smells and sounds and often other pets. This is a lot for a dog to learn about and often when they first arrive, they will be feeling very stressed and anxious so our first steps must be allowing them to settle in the home. It will take at least three days for your new greyhound’s stress levels to come back into normal ranges where they are able to process new things rather than just react to them.
Settling In
Our expectations on pet dogs is huge and when you take your greyhound home, they have a lot of new things to learn just in your house. New people, new sights, smells and sounds and often other pets. This is a lot for a dog to learn about and often when they first arrive, they will be feeling very stressed and anxious so our first steps must be allowing them to settle in the home. It will take at least three days for your new greyhound’s stress levels to come back into normal ranges where they are able to process new things rather than just react to them.
Basic Manners
Encourage behaviours that you like and make them more likely to occur by rewarding them. You can do this with treats, playing, a game with toys, pats, verbal praise, access to things the dog wants like going out the door or being allowed to sniff and explore.
Prevent the dog from engaging in behaviours that you don’t like, you can set them up for success by managing their environment. For example, keeping the dog on a lead or in a crate rather than unsupervised around the dinner table so they don’t sneak some food, or leaving them in a dog proofed area with things they’re allowed to chew, rather than unsupervised with free run of the house with all manner of things to put in their mouths.
Before you start training:
- Make sure your dog has access to water and has had an opportunity to go to the toilet.
- Keep training sessions brief, even just 2 minutes while the kettle is boiling! Several 5-minute sessions over the course of a day will be much more beneficial than a long one.
- Remember to take breaks, for a play or a cuddle and assess your dog’s body language to see how they are feeling and if they are enjoying themselves or under too much pressure to learn.
- Prepare some tasty high value treats such as small fingernail sized pieces of chicken, cheese, ham, sausage, dog roll e.g. Possyum, dried lung, liver, or even kibble soaked in sardine oil or chopped apple, carrot or banana. Experiment and see what your dog prefers.
Training with a clicker/marker word:
You can make training clearer for the dog by using a marker word like “yes” or a clicker to pinpoint the exact behaviour you like, so that the dog knows exactly what it is they are being rewarded for. You could think of it a bit like a shutter on a camera taking a photo of the desired behaviour. For example, if you are training a dog to leave a treat on the floor covered by your hand, they may be sniffing trying to reach it, but the second they move away, even a centimetre, you click or say “yes” and reward them with a separate treat. This way the dog knows that their behaviour of moving ever so slightly away was what earned them that reward.
Social Hound
The first steps when bringing a new dog home are to build a secure and strong attachment and integrate them slowly into their new surroundings. Any fear or anxiety related behaviour while the dog settles in is completely normal and a degree of stress is to be expected. Almost all hounds have lived rurally in kennel environment for their whole life and there will be so many ‘firsts’ they’ll need guiding through.