Pooch expert Steve Austin says finding the right reward is the secret to training your dog
Cannot get your pooch to “sit” or “roll over”, a renowned canine behaviour and training expert says it is not as hard as you think. See his tips and some of the best places to take your furry friend.
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You can train a dog to do just about anything, from saving your life to fetching your slippers, by consistently giving them good food, regular exercise and rewards.
That is the message from the country’s most renowned canine behaviour and training expert Steve Austin, who has more than 30 years working with canines in every aspect.
He has experience in training the house pooch and working with specially qualified dogs to rid Macquarie and Lord Howe Islands of animal predators.
Austin also has trained sniffer dogs for Japanese customs, explosives dogs for the army and his conservation work is helping save the Tasmanian devil.
He said he would also launch a canine program to detect animal poachers in Zimbabwe.
“The interesting things that we are doing with our dogs today has increased dramatically from what it was 10, or even five, years ago,” Austin said.
“The canine is really starting to come into its own, and it’s exciting.
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“We train them to protect endangered species, to find dangerous weeds that grow and plants that are very rare and for feral control with cats and foxes — even water detection.
“We are working with the West Australian Water Department to find leaky drains two metres under the ground.”
While these tasks require well-bred dogs with the right drive, a good handler and an exceptional trainer, Austin said training your home dog required a simple approach – find the right reward.
“If you are patient and calm and you treat the dog with dignity and respect you will be able to train a dog to do anything,” he said.
“But you’ve got to find the reward that particular dog wants.
“For example, I’ve got a dog Molly who has been trained to find the world’s rarest bird – if you put a T-bone steak in front of her she won’t even look at it but give her a ball and that’s a different story.”
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Austin said the first eight to 16 weeks of a puppy’s life were critical to developing good habits and behaviours, and any dog could be trained within four to five weeks.
“For an older dog, I would get a very good professional trainer or a club that has an open mind on training, and treat that two-year-old dog as a six-week-old puppy,” Austin said.
“Lead train it and toilet train it. If you have the right attitude and guidance, you get some good advice and have that dog coming when called and sitting when told, that dog will do anything.
“You want a dog that has a good spirit and that wants a reward with passion and thinks ‘I will do anything for that tennis ball or food’.”
When it comes to training, there’s no uniform approach — and don’t trust a handler who says there is.
“You’ve got to be careful when someone says ‘this is how you train a dog’,” Austin said. “You’ve got to look at them individually as you can’t use the same method [for every dog]. It’s an art.”
Originally published as Pooch expert Steve Austin says finding the right reward is the secret to training your dog