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There are many fabulous books out there that are geared toward what your goals are. If you have a dog that you just want to be a good and polite member of the family, most will give you some great advise. Some books teach from a vantage point of how the dog thinks. For example, a sled dog breed and a hunting dog breed have different motivations and training can be achieved easier with that in mind. People pleasing breeds, like labs and retrievers need different discipline levels than what a bully breed, like a boxer, might need. If you want a dog to be a work dog, there's books for that also.
One thing that I'd recommend regardless of the breed or goal is strict consistancy from all of the members of the house ALL OF THE TIME! No double standards! If there's one thing that dogs figure out quickly is when they can get away with bad behavior. Try to resist behavior that is cute as they are pups but could be a problem as an adult dog. Its much easier to train them right from the start what the rules are than it is to try and undo a bad behavior. Being a softy is confusing to a dog. Example: If you have young children, don't feed them scraps (or at least have a rule that no food is given directly from the hand to the dog's mouth and must be set in a dish or on the floor.). What this accomplishes is the dog knows its against the rules to take advantage of small people with yummy things in their hands that are at an easy reach. Another is paws on the floor, not on people...even as a pup. This will prevent happy dogs with muddy paws saying hello when you're all dressed up, or jumping up on guest that aren't dog people. Dogs don't understand that some people and some situations aren't okay for jumping up. By avoiding the whole jumping up the situation isn't an issue.
The AKC started a program called the Canine Good Citizen. If there's any program I'd recommend, its this one. Here's a link.
http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/program.cfm
Best of luck and enjoy the adventure.
There are many fabulous books out there that are geared toward what your goals are. If you have a dog that you just want to be a good and polite member of the family, most will give you some great advise. Some books teach from a vantage point of how the dog thinks. For example, a sled dog breed and a hunting dog breed have different motivations and training can be achieved easier with that in mind. People pleasing breeds, like labs and retrievers need different discipline levels than what a bully breed, like a boxer, might need. If you want a dog to be a work dog, there's books for that also.
One thing that I'd recommend regardless of the breed or goal is strict consistancy from all of the members of the house ALL OF THE TIME! No double standards! If there's one thing that dogs figure out quickly is when they can get away with bad behavior. Try to resist behavior that is cute as they are pups but could be a problem as an adult dog. Its much easier to train them right from the start what the rules are than it is to try and undo a bad behavior. Being a softy is confusing to a dog. Example: If you have young children, don't feed them scraps (or at least have a rule that no food is given directly from the hand to the dog's mouth and must be set in a dish or on the floor.). What this accomplishes is the dog knows its against the rules to take advantage of small people with yummy things in their hands that are at an easy reach. Another is paws on the floor, not on people...even as a pup. This will prevent happy dogs with muddy paws saying hello when you're all dressed up, or jumping up on guest that aren't dog people. Dogs don't understand that some people and some situations aren't okay for jumping up. By avoiding the whole jumping up the situation isn't an issue.
The AKC started a program called the Canine Good Citizen. If there's any program I'd recommend, its this one. Here's a link.
http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/program.cfm
Best of luck and enjoy the adventure.
