Quote: dannielle stcin

Which do you prefer for your dog and why?

I'm not really sure which is more... interesting?

Thinking on this a little more. When considering "real" work (see my personal definition above!) you need to not only consider your dog's aptitude, but also yours. What your dog want to do is get out and do something with you - and that can be satisfied by a variety of pursuits!

And interesting is subjective! What is "wow" to one dog person can be ho-hum to another.

For a beginner, I'd always recommend picking a couple of basic activities that interest you, then keeping that in mind as you choose a dog. Also go to some events and see what seems to click with you. If you love doing it and you dog has decent aptitude for it, the dog will have a blast doing it with you!

For training you can start right now, look into something like the Canine Good Citizen program and train for that. It's basic manners and any other type of training needs a good foundation like that to start with!

 Quote: mara jessup

 Quote: dannielle stcin

Which do you prefer for your dog and why?

I'm not really sure which is more... interesting?

Thinking on this a little more. When considering "real" work (see my personal definition above!) you need to not only consider your dog's aptitude, but also yours. What your dog want to do is get out and do something with you - and that can be satisfied by a variety of pursuits!

And interesting is subjective! What is "wow" to one dog person can be ho-hum to another.

For a beginner, I'd always recommend picking a couple of basic activities that interest you, then keeping that in mind as you choose a dog. Also go to some events and see what seems to click with you. If you love doing it and you dog has decent aptitude for it, the dog will have a blast doing it with you!

For training you can start right now, look into something like the Canine Good Citizen program and train for that. It's basic manners and any other type of training needs a good foundation like that to start with!

Thanks!

For the record, I don't want a protection dog. I just mentioned it as an example of sorts.

Personally, I'm really into the working dog. I'd like to train them as a job, but King isn't in that category. He's just not a real working dog. But I just though it'd be fun to try to train him in some of things working dogs do is all (not protection obviously). King has pretty good confidence and with more work he could be good in the ring, but not with me as his handler.

I'm afraid my anxiety would make him nervous with something like that. I'm just not the biggest fan of competing in general, so I think I'll have to overcome that myself before any sports happen.

I think we'll just start with the Canine Good Citizen program. I need to stop getting ahead of myself. Thanks again, Mara!

And thanks everyone else.

" I'm just not the biggest fan of competing in general, so I think I'll have to overcome that myself before any sports happen."

I would absolutely start with the CGC. Then, there are many sports that either are naturally or can be done non-competitively, like scent-work (and others will have more suggestions, I know!).

So I'd do what someone else mentioned and fact-gather like crazy, meanwhile getting that CGC and learning your own and your dog's leanings.

JMO!

 Quote: Dannielle StCin

Personally, I'm really into the working dog. I'd like to train them as a job, but King isn't in that category. He's just not a real working dog. But I just though it'd be fun to try to train him in some of things working dogs do is all (not protection obviously). King has pretty good confidence and with more work he could be good in the ring, but not with me as his handler.

I'm afraid my anxiety would make him nervous with something like that. I'm just not the biggest fan of competing in general, so I think I'll have to overcome that myself before any sports happen.

I think we'll just start with the Canine Good Citizen program. I need to stop getting ahead of myself. Thanks again, Mara!

And thanks everyone else.

I'm in the same boat... My dog could do so much more with a better handler...

 Quote: dannielle stcin

Personally, I'm really into the working dog. I'd like to train them as a job, but King isn't in that category. He's just not a real working dog. But I just though it'd be fun to try to train him in some of things working dogs do is all (not protection obviously). King has pretty good confidence and with more work he could be good in the ring, but not with me as his handler.

I'm afraid my anxiety would make him nervous with something like that. I'm just not the biggest fan of competing in general, so I think I'll have to overcome that myself before any sports happen.

If you want to train dogs, you just start doing it - with whatever dog you have. You learn by doing in dog training. Even if your current dog doesn't have aptitude to do a "real" job, I'm sure there are many pieces of the puzzle that you can train him to do and you'll be that much more prepared to train the next dog.

For instance are you interested in some sort of detection or nose work job? Work on tracking and nose work with your dog. Read articles on how scent works, on the training of dog used for detection work or SAR.

Are you fascinated by service dogs? Figure out how to train him to do service dog tasks (marker training all the way!!) just for kicks.

Even though he'll never do these jobs, you'll go through the learning process which will better prepare you for your next dog and you'll build a great bond with your current dog!!

 Quote:

I'm afraid my anxiety would make him nervous with something like that. I'm just not the biggest fan of competing in general, so I think I'll have to overcome that myself before any sports happen.

This happens in whatever you train your dog in!! SAR evals make me nervous. They shouldn't, they're straight forward and and it's what we've been training for. It's just now we're being evaluated on it!! Then you've got the "let your dog off leash in a brand new area on a first actual search". Yup, kind of nervous with that one, too. Even though we've done it hundreds of time in training and I know my dog works.

So you're not alone with the nervous thing! But getting out and working with your dog and you both having fun doing it will really help to build your confidence to try new things with him