Obedience Dog Training:
A Dog's Nature
By Jan Hoadley

Dogs are surprisingly complex creatures.They come in as many as 800 different breeds from the tiny Chihuahua to the large Irish Wolfhound and the pampered Pekinese to the rough working background of the Anatolian Shepherd. Some, such as the Malamute and Alaskan Husky, still very much resemble the wolf. Domestic interaction with humans over 10,000 years ago have changed some behaviors in the dog, but instincts and common traits lurk beneath the surface. These traits and instincts mark a key difference between our thoughts and those of dogs - and for successful training understanding these differences is crucial.

At the core of their being dogs are predators. The stalking instinct is refined for human benefit in herding breeds such as border collies. With training, dogs' instincts and talents can be successfully used for the benefit of humans. The keen sense of smell of search dogs help to find many people each year. They search through airline bags at airports and vehicles to find illegal materials. Some dogs are even being trained to detect cancer cells and have successfully pinpointed cancer cells on humans that were not advanced enough for current detection methods.

The abilities of dogs to do so much that we can't and honed by training, makes them invaluable not only as companions but as a valued living resource of help. The dog's nose has as many as 25 times the scent receptor cells as we do. A dog's field of vision is higher than that of humans. Their field of view has been estimated from 180-270 degrees, by comparison to a human's 100-150 degrees.

Dogs are social animals. They happily work for us either as in the previous examples or simply by being a companion and home protection. A lone dog penned away from contact leads to fear issues, aggression or other problems. Being social animals that naturally live in packs they need interaction to be at their happiest.

Knowing this natural behavior can be useful. Isolating a dog for short periods - casting him out of the pack so to speak - is very effective at getting through to a dog that a given behavior is unwanted. The human must be the leader - the pack boss. This balance of boundaries is important to understand. When a dog is behaving improperly simply turning your back to him is a very strong message without touching him or being abusive.