Q. What type of training methods do you use?

A. All of our training methods are reward based. The only punishment that is ever used is withholding of a food reward. Dogs learn to respond to their handlers in order to receive praise and rewards - not due to any fear of verbal or physical punishment. We do not allow the use of choke chains as they work by causing pain, and it is possible to cause considerable physical and psychological damage to the dog using one. Generally small food treats are used as reinforcement for the right behaviours; toys can be used as rewards if the handler prefers, although to do this does require good timing skills.

Q. Do you use clicker training? A. All of our customers are encouraged to try clicker training (but it is not insisted upon). Clicker training enables handlers to have far more precision in the timing of their reinforcements than praise and food alone can offer. Using clicker training can greatly speed the learning process for the dog.

For example, when first teaching a dog to walk on lead, the dog is only by your side on a loose lead for very short periods of time. Very often, by the time you have said "good dog", or tried to give them a piece of food, the dog is back pulling on the end of the lead. Therefore you have lost your chance to reward the right moment, i.e. the dog walking by your side. Using a clicker you have the ability to let the dog know exactly what you want; i.e. you click when the lead is loose.
To get an idea of how clicker training works, try a small experiment without your dog. Try throwing a ball into the air, and saying "good ball" at the exact moment the ball is at its highest point. You probably found that your "good ball" covered the moment the ball was at the highest point, but by the time you had finished, it was well on the way back down again. Now try throwing the ball up in the air, and clapping your hands at the highest point. After a few attempts you can probably get the clap fairly close to the right moment. Now if you assume the ball is a dog, that needs to know that the highest point of the flight is the behaviour that you want, clapping your hands together would have far more chance of giving that information than saying the drawn out "good dog". Clapping your hands is not always practical when training a dog, so this is where the clicker comes in; it's quicker, and a lot more accurate, than verbal praise as a method of providing information to the dog. A more detailed explanation of clicker training is given during our introductory lessons.