[nagdu] owner training your own dog

Katrin Andberg katrin at maplewooddog.com
Thu Dec 9 03:39:42 UTC 2010


For me I am currently owner training my 2nd dog.  My 1st, James, is a flat
coat who recently retired, and my current in-training is Jess an 11m old
yellow lab.  James I got as a pup by accident (he was a rescue situation),
but due to being heavily involved in competition obedience and agility, had
a solid foundation by the time I decided to train him to be my guide/service
dog (which I began training for when he was 10m).  I got lucky that James
had the right temperament and love for the work and he worked extremely well
as my guide until this past July when he was diagnosed with bone cancer and
immediately retired.  I actually had planned to get my next guide from GDF,
went through their application process, was accepted, was on the wait list
for near 6m and nearing the time to be called to a training class, when Jess
fell into my lap.  I am a professional dog trainer and a lab breeder who I
have known for many many years gave me a call about an 8m old female that
had been returned to her due to just not being in the right home through no
fault of the dogs, and did I have anyone who might be a good fit for her.  I
went out and evaluated her, thought she might work for someone I knew, so
brought her home to test out for a week or so.  Within 3 days I knew she was
too good to pass up, and that she had found a home with me.  She was
everything I had been looking for in a potential guide.  I contacted GDF and
asked to be taken off the wait list.  Yes the past 3 months have been a
tremendous amount of hard work and effort, and I will be putting forth
tremendous amounts of effort into this dog well into the summer before she
is old enough to be reliable and solid with her training in all situations.
And yes it is, quite frankly, exhausting.  Training Jess is a full time job
on top of all of the other things I have to do in a day.  There are no short
cuts to any place worth going, and there are no short cuts to getting a
great owner trained guide.  But to me it is 100% worth it.  I am having the
time of my life training Jess.  I just absolutely love it.  It's what I love
to do- train dogs.  Watching Jess learn new things and progress every day,
is immensely rewarding.  Knowing exactly how she has gotten where she is
currently and how she will get to the final destination, I find to be
something I love about owner training.  In the end I can trust my dog
completely because I know just how they learned each task, since I'm the one
that set the foundation and taught it to the dog.  Owner training is not for
everyone, programs certainly fill an important niche in this world.  But for
some, like myself and others on this list, owner training is completely
worth the time, effort, energy and money we put into it.  I have never
regretted owner training James and I doubt I will ever regret owner training
Jess.  It's just what I love to do and really is something that makes me
very happy.

 

Katrin 

 

Katrin Andberg

 <mailto:katrin at maplewooddog.com> katrin at maplewooddog.com

 

-----

Hi guys,

> 

> I'm curious about owner training dogs. How do you find a dog? How do you 

> learn to know everything you should teach a dog? Have you found GuideDog 

> schools open to giving someone advice as far as training a dog?

> 

> It just seems like it would take so much time and effort that it could be 

> more worth your wile to just find a school.

> Note that I'm looking for responses from people who have actually owner 

> trained their dogs or are in the process of doing so. I'm not really 

> interested in someone who wants to promote their school of choice wile 

> slamming the practice of owner training. Unless said person has experience


> with owner training, but prefers one of the established schools.

> 

> Thanks

> 

> Jeff Young

 




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