Teaching Your Staff To Train the Dogs

The Dog Gurus are huge advocates of establishing a solid partnership between the off-leash playgroup staff and a dog training staff. There is a great deal of synergy between those two groups which can allow you to increase the revenue streams at your business (we’ll talk more about this in a later post!). But even if you don’t yet have a dog trainer as a part of your staffing model, you can still establish a solid foundation of expected behavior by dogs in your care.

Every staff member should be able to teach any dog in your off-leash play environment some basic behaviors. Your staff should also be able to reinforce these behaviors as well. By using obedience cues you’ll be better able to establish a strong bond with your dogs. More importantly, you’ll be able to tell the dog what you want him to do rather than just focusing on stopping bad behavior by saying “no” all the time.

Our three favorite cues which everyone should learn to teach to the dogs are Come, Sit and Wait. As our bonus item this month, check out the videos below to learn a bit about teaching and using each one.

Come (recall training) 

Sit

Wait (at the gates)

You’ll use these skills not so much to train the dog for the client (that should be left to a qualified dog trainer), but so that you have better management and control of the dogs while they are with you!

Stay with us each week as we talk about how to use these cues and answer common questions about having your staff train the dogs.