Paw Patrol

According to Patrick — Singapore’s most acclaimed dog trainer and the founder of Waggies Dog School and — there are several red lights to consider when one adopts a dog regardless of its age.

- Patrick Wong

People often come to me to help solve behavioural problems with their dogs. The number one being potty training for new puppies, and other issues like excessive barking, biting, jumping on people, aggression, charging at other dogs/ humans, and the inability to respond to commands are very common too.

You can easily tell if a dog is well behaved from how it responds to its owner/ handler. A well-behaved dog is one that will respond to a single command. If one has to keep repeating his commands to get the dog to respond, the dog probably does not understand what is required from it.

That is not to say though, that such a dog is a “bad” or badly behaved dog. It is actually a misconception that undesired behaviours in dogs are because a dog disrespects the owner or wishes to challenge authority. Undesired behaviors are usually a result of the dogs not understanding what is required of them, or owners mishandling or confusing their dogs. For example, many owners do not realize that their body language is key to building or destroying the dog’s confidence. All it means is that the handler and the dog can benefit from dog training to get both of them to understand how to communicate with each other.

That is why in Waggies dog training classes, we not only teach the dog but focus a lot on teaching owners how best to respond and redirect their dog’s undesired behaviors. Teaching the owners is often more important than teaching the dogs!