Management in dog training

Dalmatian

All dog trainers will agree that management has its place somewhere in dog training, whether this is for behavioural issues or basic training.

Management with recall can be keeping your dog on a long line to prevent them being able to fully run off and therefore reinforce themselves with being able to get away. Management with reactivity can be taking your dog out on walks at quieter times or quieter venues, with separation anxiety it can be utilising your friends or a dog sitter or walker to take care of your dog if you need to pop out.

We can use management to work around our training to help us with the issues at hand. I'm a firm believe that management and training should always coincide, if you're going to use one you should use the other.

It's easy for the of us with reactive dogs to only walk them early in the morning or late at night so we don't see other dogs or people, however that doesn't even begin to resolve the issue. The issue still exists it's just not being triggered. The same with separation anxiety, by never leaving the dog alone the issue doesn't occur. This is all management. However by working with a trainer we can begin to work on these issues with a structured training plan, and slowly adjust our dogs behaviour to a more acceptable level based on the problem at hand.

Managing can also mean separating two household dogs while feeding to prevent resource guarding. There are so many ways management can come into daily life as dog owners, we can use it for prevention of issues just as much as we can use it as a tool alongside training.