It's sometimes difficult, especially for long-time dog owners, to decide whether to use a dog training school for new canine members of the family. Most people will know enough to teach a dog some basic tricks and obedience commands. Many who have trained dogs before choose not to use a training school because they have had previous successes in dog training.

For the vast majority of dog owners, though, careful consideration must be given before deciding to train their dogs on their own and avoid dog training school. There are two aspects to dog training that are often underestimated. First, the amount of time it takes. Even if you use a dog training school, you need to put in a lot of time with your dog outside of classes. Dog training is definitely one of those things in life where, ?the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.? While a dog training school doesn't add too much to the time spent with your dog, the lessons learned can make the time you spend outside of class far more productive. As a rule of thumb, depending on your dog, its age and obedience level, you should be sure to spend at least some time everyday training your dog.

The other aspect of training a dog that is underestimated and can be helped by using a dog training school is how long it takes to train. Many people spend hours each day for a couple weeks and, once their dog is ?going? outside, and responding to ?sit?, all training is stopped. Unfortunately, dog training is an ongoing process and never really ends. On a more formal level, training should go on for at least many weeks, if not months. Again, the longer you actively train your dog, the more enjoyment you will get.

Even while there are aspects of dog training that are underestimated, it does not mean you can't have a fairly well-trained dog ? if all of your training goes perfectly well, which it most often doesn't. A dog training school isn't there to necessarily show your dog everything it needs to know and do to be well behaved, but more to put you and your dog on the right track to a long, loving relationship of mutual respect. The absence of formal dog training at a school can mean you never have the relationship you want with your pet.

The problem may never become apparent. Many dog owners adjust their lives to fit the habits and personality of their dogs, never really understanding that those changes are only necessary because of a lack of training.

A worse case can arise in the absence of training at a dog school when the owner's training is wrong or misguided. Very often this can cause confusing conflict for dogs from which they might never emerge. One basic mistake many owners make is to not first establish who is boss while training. Dogs are pack animals and every pack has a leader and a ?second in command? who, together, keep the pack organized and in line.

In the absence of a leader and/or second in command, it is a dog's natural instinct to try to assume at least one of the roles. The implications of this instinct for dog owners who do not establish themselves as leader are complex. In their dog's mind, an owner who is not clearly the leader of the pack is actually in competition with the dog to be leader. Imagine, the reason you have a difficult time training your dog is because it sees you as a rival for pack leader.

In these cases, training a dog is an exponentially more difficult because, not only do you still need to do the necessary training, you need to re-program your dog's view of the world before you ever start to get anywhere ? all because you didn't use a dog training school.

Unfortunately, not all dog training schools are created equal and your first problem is finding the best one for you and your pet. Talk to your veterinarian, check internet forums and visit a few training schools and you will get an idea of what to look for.

Alpha Paws is a highly respected dog training school serving Toronto and the GTA.