A few years back I took my dog to an obedience school because it was acting crazy most of the time. After attending a couple of classes I realized that it was not my dog who was acting crazy, it was me.

When you join a dog obedience school you learn how to train your dog to behave appropriately. In the first stages of training puppies, it is very common that their owners take them to a dog obedience school.

The training is usually done in small groups, where in addition to train the dog itself, it also teaches the dog’s owner how to train, scold and praise the dog.

Actually, a professional dog trainer does not really train the dog; he is training the dog’s owner how to do the training. You can, though, send you dog away to a dog training school alone. But you as the owner must still learn skills to reinforce what the dog has learnt on the dog school. If you attend a class together with your dog, you and your dog have a much better chance of learning more about each other as a team under professional guidance.

Every person who has to handle the dog should take part in the training to ensure consistent methods and commands. Or else the dog can get very confused.

I felt like quitting a lot of times because it was harder to change my own behavior than changing my dog’s behavior. I had to learn how to praise my dog more than scolding it. I was amazed.

The strange thing is that, because I started to look at myself in a new perspective, it suddenly came very clear to me that; it was not just my relationship to my dog that needed to change. It was my attitude towards other people as well. A huge eye-opener, that was hard to swallow. And when I look back I can truly say that attending that dog obedience school really changed my life. I would not be the person I am today. And that counts both towards dogs as well as people.

If you are in doubt about whether you should attend a class with your dog or not – don’t be.

Thank you for your time.