Beckman's Dog Training Blog

Imagine that when your dog gets sick or needs a shot you can’t restrain him in any way. The vet has to come to your house, your dog has to voluntarily come over and stand there for whatever the vet needs to do to him. Does this sound impossible? This is what marine mammal trainers do with the animals every day.
In your busy life you may not have the time to train husbandry behaviors but you should always make an effort to make husbandry behaviors and vet visits as easy and pain free as possible.
At a young age start to touch your puppy all over. Make every new experience a positive one. Take plenty of treats to the vet, groomer, and in the bath.
Every time you strap a leash on your dog and go to a new place you are either helping or hurting your relationship and you are either helping or hurting your dogs confidence, and his confidence in you. Start to have the mind set that every new situation can potentially be a scary one, especially if you have not trained your dog to accept and enjoy new things, and remember that what you feel may be scary to your dog and what is actually scary are two different things. Take time to do this stuff early on and you will save time and money trying to fix neurotic behavior later.