Buckinghamshire Dog Training

The Bucks Dog Training - Dog Training in Little Kingshill, Buckinghamshire

The Bucks Dog Training UK training system is best described as heavily reward-based and focused on making good, appropriate behaviour something your dog chooses to do because it's fun for them.

The bulk of our training is done by finding something the dog finds reinforcing (such as food, a ball, play, praise) and then utilising it as payment for when the dog complies, is learning new things or is making an effort to get things right.

Reward systems work to increase the likelihood of your dog performing that behaviour in future and so are superb for teaching new skills. They do however often fall flat in the moments you need them to hold up the most if they are our only option (e.g. recalling off a deer, not eating that cooked chicken bone the dog found in the park, not jumping all over exciting visitors etc).

This being the case, behaviours that are dangerous to either owner, dog or both such as car or sheep chasing are things we will work to eradicate as swiftly, clearly and fairly as possible before immediately returning to our usual fun and reward based methods.

We do this because reward-only systems often struggle or fail completely to override the incidence of a dog performing an unwanted behaviour that he finds fun and attempts to merely replace it with a new, less exciting one is very often an unfair and incomplete picture to the dog. It can also drag out training for far longer than necessary, lead to lifelong management rather than an actual fix and can even put the dog and owner at unnecessary risk.

So as much as we always want to keep training fun, we also have to keep it realistic and effective and thus will use safe, fair correction to enforce boundaries where it is necessary for the dogs long term welfare.

We are also strongly of the opinion that it is highly unethical to spend many months or even years keeping a high energy, high drive dog confined to a lead (especially if charging the owner continuously) whilst trying to create a truly reliable recall when this can generally be achieved in 6 to 12 weeks using a less closed-minded ideodology that sees the dog able to burn off steam properly and be trusted to have real unconfined freedom to be a dog.

A properly exercised dog is also usually a dog with fewer behavioural issues so this is an important factor to consider too.

This all being the case, we are proud to be able to offer gentle, safe and effective remote collar training to dogs for whom a reward-only system is failing or who have such powerful prey drives that it is unsafe to permit them off lead without a safety net. By doing this, we are thereby ensuring their long term welfare and (one of the Five Freedoms) ability to express natural behaviours safely without risk to themselves or others.

We do not really ascribe to any of the Internet dog training labels such as "force" free, balanced or purely positive as training should be appropriate, effective and tailored to each and every dog and owner as the individuals they are.

Closed systems and labels don't do anyone any one any favours and frankly, labels don't train dogs.