Dog trainer reveals four daily tasks ‘all owners must do’

A dog training guru has revealed the four essential things you should be doing with your canine companion “every single day”.

Canine behaviour expert Will Atherton, who boasts more than 900,000 subscribers on YouTube, dispenses invaluable dog training wisdom and insights into which breeds might be suitable to you.

In a recent video, Will took advantage of a quiet moment during a countryside game shoot with his dog Uncle Sully to share and demonstrate four key practices he insists all dog owners should incorporate into their daily routine.

Walking to heel

“It is very nice to know that I can come out here and just know that, wherever I am, he’ll stay by my side without a lead,” Will said.

“But for you guys at home that might never come out on a shoot day like this, I still think you should be teaching your dog how to walk to heel.”

He explained that 98% of “problem behaviours” encountered outdoors “can be solved if you teach your dog to walk to heel”, which can be achieved even with a “loose lead” rather than having your dog “off-lead”.

He added: “It means that your dog is following you and they’re looking to you for guidance and direction.”

Crate training

Will said that while walking to heel addresses most issues outside, effective crate training is the answer to indoor troubles. “You put those two things together, and there’s no reason you should have to deal with the vast majority of problem behaviours,” he asserted.

This doesn’t mean dogs need to live in a crate most of the time. Will added: “But being able to control and manage the environment removes their ability to make bad decisions while we work on their training, and slowly then reintroduce a little bit of freedom one successful moment at a time.”

Threshold manners

Will explained a threshold can be anything including a gate, stile or bridge. He said: “I want to make sure my dog will display lovely manners as I go through those thresholds first, while they then wait until I invite them over.”

Demonstrating on a “sketchy stile”, he explained how it would be dangerous for him if Uncle Sully tried to jump over at the same time.

Impulse control

Will described impulse control as the “most important” and “most underrated” skill that not enough people work on with their dogs.

He went on: “It does not matter how much training you do in your home if you can’t bring it out and use it in the real world, whether that’s at something extreme like this [the shoot] or whether it’s simply trying to take your dog to the pub and asking them to sit and chill.”