Obedience Classes VS. Youtube Obedience
 

Just curious as to how many of you have successfully gotten your furbaby trained by youtube videos? I have like 6-8 videos saves so far. I know obedience classes aren't mandatory but I'd still like Tommy to be better behaved, as well as learn some tricks.

I never took Jackson to obedience classes. I trained him at first by purely just guessing, then I discovered YouTube. I trained Jackson all of his tricks thanks to YouTube! However, he was socialized in many other ways, including going to the dog park, pet stores, and meeting other dogs and people and new experiences on a weekly basis.

So while training from the comfort of our own home was/is GREAT, I still will highly recommend actual training classes most of the time simply for the socialization. I also practiced his commands and tricks outside our home a lot, in order for him to listen w/ distractions. That's the nice thing about classes. Jackson had his first "formal" class in October, and it was an agility class, and I must say... I had a blast and highly enjoyed being able to train and learn with other owners and dogs and am wanting to sign up for an intermediate obedience course just to fresh up and for fun. :) I also liked having a trainer be able to tell me what I was doing right and wrong, as sometimes you don't even realize what you are doing.

So, in general, I'd recommend classes! It's a fun experience. And most of it is just like a real classroom, you learn how and what to do, and then practice it at home anyways to 'perfect' it.

Most of Kaji's training is done at home. He's such a good little man. Before we moved I could walk him off leash for all 5 of his walks without a worry. He always came back when called, and he would sit nicely for me when I wanted to leash him back up. I'm not creative when it comes to tricks, but it did help to see the different techniques people used here on YT and on youtube. We had the hardest time with "down" until I tried something different that I had seen on youtube. I would love to sign Kaji up for agility classes. I think he'd really enjoy all the running. :)

I can't WAIT 'til you sign Kaji up for agility! I think he will have a blast.

Me either! After seeing Jackson's vids I'm so excited. The only one I've found is 10 miles away. There has to be a closer class.

I drive 16 miles! It's like 25-30 minutes away from my house. It's so worth it though and the closest agility classes I found. There's regular obedience classes closer, but I really like this place and trainer and am sooo glad I found it. :)

10 miles with traffic could be anywhere from 30 mins to an hour. I don't know why there is so much traffic on the weekends. :confused:

I took Snickers to both the AKC S.T.A.R Puppy class and the Canine Good Citizen class (on the same night, since he is a rescue I could only approximate his age and was not sure which class he should be in). He already knew all of the commands needed to pass the class, but his struggle was/is that he is a bit hyper-active at times (being a Yorkie puppy, I guess I could not expect much less:)) and he really needed the experience of learning to properly socialize. I taught him most of the obedience commands he knows from reading books, reading different websites and watching youtube videos. He also knows a fair amount of tricks, most of which I got the ideas from youtube. I found obedience classes helpful for the social aspect. Especially since my dog has a quite a dominant personality, he needs to practice getting along with others. ;) He already knew what to do, but getting him to focus in an environment with lots of new and different stimulus that would distract him is a different experience and sometimes, challenge. I also really wanted him to get his Canine Good Citizen, which was my other motivation. (I really didn't think he could calm down enough to pass and thought we'd have to re-take it when he was older and less crazy...he's still such a puppy...but he did! And was the only one in the class who passed! I was really, truly shocked!)

I'm sort of an obedience class junkie. What I like is that good instructors know several ways of teaching the same thing. They see how your dog reacts and sometimes suggest other ways to train your specific dog. They also watch you and give you feedback on everything from body language to how you reward.

On the other hand, I've had instructors who have never worked with little dogs before and didn't understand that they sometimes require gentler training methods. Well, at least mine do! It took a while before I found an instructor who worked for me.

I've watched only a few YouTube instructional videos and honestly didn't learn much. I'd try, it wouldn't work, and I had no one to ask what I was doing wrong and why it wasn't working.

Mike, have you ever watched any of these channels?
YouTube - zakgeorge21's Channel
YouTube - JustJesse197's Channel
YouTube - kikopup's Channel
YouTube - pamelamarxsen's Channel
YouTube - zsianz1's Channel

Thanks for the links, Brit! Some of those ARE good. I'd seen zak george's before and been interested, but got frustrated on the limp trick. That's one of those that didn't work for me. I ended up finding a book with another method that worked better for me.

I really like pamelamarxsen's Channel. Maybe I'll re-evaluate. Now that I know how I like to train my dogs, it wouldn't hurt to check some of these guys for ideas. I'm gonna bookmark them.

One thing I find frustrating about youtube videos is they often use border collies -- who learn tricks much faster than Yorkies. And they're often demonstrating the trick with a dog that already KNOWS the trick, which makes it appear much easier than when you do it yourself.

Thanks everyone! I'd like to get Tommy in some obedience training at some point. I totally agree that he needs more socialization. He is (surprising to me) friendly with the other doggies in the neighborhood. Recently, he's been even initating the contact. So, I guess it's a start.

So far, I've only tried one 'obedience' lesson on him. And that was teaching him his name. For the most part, I'd say 90% of the time he listens to his name. I'm going to try the 'sit' command next. I dont want to get frustrated by this all though. Is 10min/day too much? Or should I break the lessons down a few times per day?

Thanks for the links. Can't wait to get Miss Bella under control... She is not going to be happy about being taken down a notch but oh well.. Happy Training to start Monday...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE taking mine to classes, I love to see them interact with other dogs, get socialized and play!!!!!! I also LOVE learning how to train them correctly and I LOVE seeing the other dogs.....I am such a doggy lover!!!:)

:)
VIV

I love the classes. I have taken other dogs through with great sucess. I want to take my little one but they are telling me I have to use a choke on her to really do it right and I simple refuse. Has anyone experienced this? Has anyone had sucess trining on a harness. I want her to be a therapy dog so she needs to be reliable.