Thinking about Settling Indoors
Crate Training One of the under-discussed truths about crate training is that the best practitioners often do less of it, not more. They learn to d...
Dog Training sits in an awkward place online. Search for it and you get either product affiliate links or gatekeeping, with very little in between. This is a quiet attempt at the in-between: a small site about doing dog training at a sensible level, by someone who has been walking long enough to know which advice survives contact with reality.
The most useful place to start is leash walking. Get that right and most of the common beginner problems disappear. crate training is the next thing worth your attention. Beyond that, the rest is fine-tuning.
Recall
Recall divides dog training hobbyists into two groups: those who think it is the most important part, and those who hardly think about it at all. Both can be right. recall matters more in some styles of dog training than others, and figuring out which camp you should be in is itself a useful exercise.
If you are unsure: spend two or three sessions explicitly focused on recall — pay attention, take notes, try small variations. If those sessions feel revealing and produce noticeable improvement, recall is probably one of your high-leverage areas. If they feel mostly redundant, you are likely in the camp that should focus elsewhere. Either answer is fine.
Crate Training
If there is one place where new dog training hobbyists overspend, it is on equipment for crate training. The marketing makes it sound as though the right gear is the difference between failure and success. In practice, the cheapest competent option for crate training is good enough for the first year, and most of the improvement in that year comes from the person rather than the kit.
That said, crate training is also a place where one mid-priced upgrade can transform the experience after the basics are in. Beginners often save in the wrong place and spend in the wrong place. The simple rule: get the cheapest decent version while you are learning, and upgrade only when you can name the specific limitation you are running into.
Socialisation
One of the under-discussed truths about socialisation is that the best practitioners often do less of it, not more. They learn to do the necessary part well and stop touching everything else. Beginners almost always over-handle socialisation — adjusting things that did not need adjusting, fussing with details that did not need attention, second-guessing decisions that were already correct.
If you find yourself fiddling with socialisation during a session, that is usually the moment to step back. Make one deliberate decision, commit to it, and see what happens. The discipline of leaving things alone is a real skill in dog training and pays dividends across the whole practice.
Recall
If there is one place where new dog training hobbyists overspend, it is on equipment for recall. The marketing makes it sound as though the right gear is the difference between failure and success. In practice, the cheapest competent option for recall is good enough for the first year, and most of the improvement in that year comes from the person rather than the kit.
That said, recall is also a place where one mid-priced upgrade can transform the experience after the basics are in. Beginners often save in the wrong place and spend in the wrong place. The simple rule: get the cheapest decent version while you are learning, and upgrade only when you can name the specific limitation you are running into.
None of this is meant as the last word. dog training is a hobby in which experience reliably outperforms instruction, and the only way to develop that experience is to keep practicing with. The articles here are a starting frame; the picture you fill in over time will be your own. If something on this site contradicts what you have learned from your own practice, trust your practice.