a dog

The difference between yard and field training

When it comes to training your dog, most owners tend to mix up between training the dog in the yard and training the dog in the field. Both of these have differences and there is a need to properly introduce the difference between both types of areas.

Yard Training

Whenever you have a dog for the very first time, and you wish to conduct training for him or her, it will be essential to restrict dog's movement as the dog might not be receptive towards your training methods — as such, doing the first few sessions in the yard will be suitable as you can easily control the environment.

Some parameters that can influence your dog’s training include:

  • Wildlife
  • Birds
  • Ever-changing landscape
  • Other distractions

If you read the above, you will notice that most of these can be easily restrained if the training is in the yard. Now, if you are considering conducting obedience training for your dog, it is best to do it in the yard. This is really because if the dog does not listen to you in the yard, it will surely not listen to you when in the field.

Also, before you progress to the field training for a more diversified training schedule, you might want to work on using an e-collar to train your dog to listen to your commands. Indeed, the e-collar is one of the best training tools when it comes to obedience training, or even to train your dog on hunting, and the yard is the best place to work on collar conditioning for your dog.

However, it can be pretty boring if the training is conducted in the yard all the time. As such, the dog might start to grow increasingly bored and might start to display signs of lethargy towards the training. If this is the case, it can be good for you to bring your dog to the next level of training.

Field training

This is where all hell can break loose, as the dog is no longer confined to an area at which you are in control. If you have decided on embarking on-field training even before conducting collar training by using an e-collar, or even before doing obedience training, you will realize that you have a mountain to climb.

In the field, your dog is exposed to an ever-changing landscape as well as wildlife that your dog is not usually exposed to in their daily routine. As such, it will take a lot of effort for you to control your dog, that is if the yard training hasn’t been conducted before field training.

Field training does bring about a whole lot of possibilities and hence fun for your dog as they can run freely without being confined in an area. Of course, before you are very confident that the dog will listen and obey your commands, you should put an e-collar on your dog so that you can be in control. Field training is always much more fun than yard training, so it will be useful to mix and match the different training schedules whenever possible.

Conclusion

In both types of training,  whether it yard work or field training, the e-collar is an essential part of the practice. Start by practicing obedience in the yard and moving on to field training; the e-collar will give you confidence and control over the situation.

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