Reasons why you should train your dog

By Kodichukwu Okonkwo, DVM | March 28th, 2018




Dogs are simply animals that have innate instincts engraved in their DNA which in many cases will not be favorable to human owners. It’s a wonder that when puppies are born they find their way somehow to the teats of their mothers breast even without open eyes. I have seen a lamb stand and talk on the day of birth. This animal instincts somehow need some human input for a better behavior modification that suits the purpose of the animal.

 Imagine bringing a dog to help a shepherd to herd his sheep and the dog ends up killing one of the sheep for food due to his wild animal instinct. That will be an unfortunate outcome but many dogs are being used for same purpose with the best of results due to proper training.

Today dogs have been used to do spectacular things like leading a blind man, going to the mall for a cripple and dancing in shows. These dogs behave as instructed to the awe of the crowd and to those that underestimate them.

The point is that dogs cannot behave as instructed if they are not trained over a period in their lifetime. Training remains the key to a successful behavior modification. Of course you can’t totally remove the animal instinct but you can succeed in tweaking it to suit the purpose.

Many people do allow their dogs indoors where they receive visitors, into their bedrooms and even to sleep on their beds but this cannot be achieved without training.

Training for dogs do not really mean taking the dog to a school and bringing him back later in the day like children - no! Training is also not meant to be hard for the owner or handler of the dog to achieve. Like children puppies are very observant so they see things you like them to do and things you don’t like and modify their behaviors accordingly but sometimes commands needs to be added to it for memory sake. Commands added to the training of these dogs help them to associate the command to the particular action and easy repeat when issued.

The simplest training you can give your dog is to teach him to answer his name. This is simply done by repetition and re-enforcement of the same “word” or name. With the name of the dog properly re-enforced other training becomes simple or easily achieved. Some dogs that are hyper active are sometimes thought to sit and stay still. This simple training done mostly when feeding the puppy or dog and it helps the trainer to get the attention of the dog for further instruction.

Some dogs are trained to solve crimes like sniffing for drugs, in searching for victims of natural disasters and search or chasing of criminals among other things which humans have limitations achieving.

Dogs are increasingly becoming members of the house and are trained to urinate and defecate at proper places or outside the house. Many of them are thought to bark only when it is extremely necessary not indiscriminately.

It is important to note that dogs have ended up in our hands as supporters especially in areas we are deficient,  helping us to achieve or do more, so training has become extremely important for dogs - formal or informal - as long as they learn and do as instructed. 

1 Comments
  1. celestine irene March 28th, 2018

Leave a Reply

Kodichukwu Okonkwo, DVM

Founder of Fairvet Animal Clinic Ltd since 2011, studied at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. He is well experienced in small animal, large animal & poultry medicine, and also skilled at zoo medicine. He loves animals and builds both professional and personal relationship with pet owners in order to sustain a good interaction with pet and animal owners, coupled with His great skills in programming; he brought about www.fairvet.com which he personally built from scratch.



View our Contributors

Popular Articles