From Birdbrained to Brilliant - 9781617811371

He can retrieve—but can he sit, lie down and stay? Sporting dog breeds can be relatively easy to train to do what they have been bred to do be it retrieve, point, flush— even act as a decoy to attract game! In addition, most sporting breeds have a gregarious personality and love people and other dogs. These attributes make these dogs very popular pets, but at the same time present all sorts of problems when they are not working in the field. Have you ever tried to ask your Lab to sit and stay near a pond with the ducks? Why is it that Goldens are notorious for jumping up on people (not to mention other dogs) when greeting them? Does your sporting dog eat every smelly item he encounters before you can stop him? In this new book, author Dawn Antoniak-Mitchell offers answers to solving and preventing the often surprising set of problems that owners of sporting dogs encounter at home and in their local communities.You will learn • Many of the overly friendly traits associated with sporting dogs can cause problems with other people and other dogs if you cannot control your dog's enthusiastic (and sometimes obnoxious) greeting behaviors.• How to make yourself more interesting than birds, as impossible as that might seem, to make walks and outings more pleasant for all involved.• How to train a strong “leave it” behavior to keep your dog from eating things that might be dangerous.