Today, dog owners want companion dogs who will calmly enter an elevator; ride in the car, boat, or RV; sleep in the bedroom; join the family on its beach vacation and at the kids’ soccer games; and jog around the neighborhood or hike in the woods—all without knocking Grandma to the floor, challenging strange dogs, charging out of open doors, or pulling on the leash. Now a full-fledged member of the family, the contemporary companion dog regularly visits a variety of places and enjoys a variety of new experiences. This lifestyle dictates a greater degree of sophistication than previously required in a family pet.

This level of sophistication, however, is typical of a service dog. Some of the most knowledgeable (but least celebrated) dog training professionals exist within the ranks of service and therapy dog trainers. Through the following critical elements, these experts excel at creating well-behaved, sociable, owner-focused companion dogs who become reliable helpers for their handlers:

• Evaluating the temperaments, trainability, and potential for bonding in puppies and adult dogs
• Knowing breed-specific traits that will affect the behavior and needs of a dog
• Creating a managed, positive-outcome socialization program
• Training complex behaviors and instilling self-discipline in dogs using rewards-based processes
• Developing canine companions who base their decisions about appropriate behavior on the direction of their handlers, rather than on impulse or immediate self-gratification

Foundation socialization training, a key part of the training of service dogs, provides dogs with the skills to behave appropriately in almost any setting, in partnership with their owners. Service dogs maintain proper decorum in the presence of strangers, other dogs, children, and the disabled. They exhibit self-discipline and display confidence in a variety of strange and challenging situations, always focused on the direction provided by their owners. Service dog trainers regularly turn out one great companion dog after another—a dog who’s always welcome.

Socialization training surpasses obedience training of specific behaviors like Sit, Down, or Stay when it comes to creating a great companion dog. Yet socialization cannot be left to chance, and it can’t be accomplished in a single six-week training class. To produce a high-quality canine companion, the owner must understand and implement a managed socialization program with the same dedication that he devotes to training specific dog behaviors.

The rewards of proper socialization outweigh the products of traditional behavior training because they produce a reliable, take-anywhere canine companion—not just a dog who has memorized behaviors-on-command, but a dog who understands how to react in many settings and trusts his owner’s ability to manage a wide range of situations. A socialization program launches a dog who is prepared to get the most out of behavior training activities undertaken in conjunction with socialization or in the future.

As an instructor for traditional obedience classes, Lorie Long emphasizes the importance of anticipating a dog’s reactions. Anticipating behavior and manipulating the dog’s environment to create a setting for success works much more effectively that trying to reverse established unacceptable behaviors. This anticipation requires the principles of managed socialization practiced by service dog trainers. Managed socialization allows owners to develop the skills to read their dogs’ signals and reactions—to read their dogs. It teaches them not to ascribe inappropriate motivations to their dogs’ behaviors, like spite, fear, or stubbornness. This socialization process provides an invaluable element in the dog’s behavior training activities because it not only creates an owner-focused dog, but it creates a dog-focused owner who knows how to read his dog and manage the dog’s environment as a pre-emptive measure.

Today's dog owners want well-behaved, take-anywhere canine companions

Increasingly, owners take their dogs everywhere and expect them to behave in all kinds of social situations. This book shares the proven methods of assistance and therapy dog trainers; after all, assistance dogs are models of doggy decorum. Complete with instructive photos, this guide emphasizes socialization and espouses dog-friendly, reward-based techniques. The training creates a reliable, owner-focused dog and an owner who can read his pet and proactively prevent problems. The result? A reliable canine companion who is welcome anywhere.

Lorie Long (Roanoke, VA) has trained dogs for more than 25 years. She has written extensively for The Whole Dog Journal and other publications and is the author of The Siberian Husky (978-0-7938-3647-5).

You can take her with you...

If you're like most dog owners, you want a trustworthy companion you can take on family vacations, to ball games, on hikes, and to cafes and festivals. You want your dog to behave when you have guests, stay peacefully at hotels, ride calmly in elevators, and maintain proper doggie decorum in all kinds of situations.

Chances are, you've watched and admired assistance and therapy dogs who are attentive to their owners' needs no matter what. This book taps into the secrets of assistance and therapy dog trainers and shows you how to use focused foundation socialization training to make sure your dog is well behaved--even in unfamiliar environments loaded with distractions and temptations. It goes beyond typical behavioral training and basic commands and covers:

Evaluating your dog and recognizing traits that will affect her needs

Using reward-based processes to teach complex behaviors and self-discipline

Creating a socialization program that makes your dog focused on you and confident in different environments

Reading your dog so you can anticipate her reactions and keep her focused on your directions

With these sophisticated training techniques, you'll turn your family pet into a sociable, take-anywhere dog who will always be welcome

Lorie Longhas raised and trained dogs for more than twenty-five years. She and her two Border Terriers compete in dog agility competitions; one recently earned the coveted AKC title Master Agility Champion. Long has taught classes in beginner and intermediate dog obedience, participated in AKC obedience trials, and trained her Labrador Retrievers as therapy dogs who visited nursing home patients. She has had articles published in Dog World, The Whole Dog Journal, and other magazines.