Fascinating Facts and Figures about Dog Training

By Linda Cole

Most dog owners understand why it's important to make sure their dog knows basic commands like come, sit and stay. Recently, a company in England wanted to find out what dog owners thought about dog training, so they asked 1,000 dog owners in the UK and the U.S. some questions about training their dogs. The company came up with some interesting facts and figures about dog training. Record your own answers and then find out how you stack up with respondents who took the survey.

1. How well trained is your dog compared to someone else's dog?
a. 10%
b. 20%
c. More than 50%
d. You mean you can train a dog?

2. If you have three or more dogs, how old was your dog before he/she was socialized?
a. My dog is a work in progress.
b. While he/she was still a puppy. I learned from my mistakes with my first puppy.
c. A year or older.
d. Socialize? I'm still trying to get him to stop eating my socks!

3. Which basic command is the most important one for a dog to know?
a. Come
b. Stay
c. Sit
d. Roll Over

4. What commands have you taught your dog?
a. Sit
b. Stay
c. Rollover
d. Come
e. Fetch

5. Have you ever taken your dog to a dog training class?
a. Yes
b. Never
c. At one time, but I don't go anymore.
d. If there's a potluck served afterwards, I might think about it.

6. How much time each week do you spend in training your dog?
a. 20 hours or more
b. 1 – 3 hours per week
c. 30 minutes or less
d. I didn't train my dog. He trained me.

7. Did you take your puppy to socialization classes, and did it help train him?
a. Puppy school? You're kidding, right?
b. Yes, he was much easier to train after taking him to classes.
c. No, it didn't help at all.
d. I didn't take him to school and he was harder to train.

Results from respondents:

1. When it comes to whose dog is trained better, 51.9% of dog owners said their dog is better trained than someone else's, and 46.2 % say someone else's dog is better trained.

2. Raising a puppy is hard. You have to housebreak him, teach him it's not OK to chase the cat, and socialize him. Owners with multiple dogs responded to this question with a learned knowledge the first time puppy owner didn't have—the importance of socializing a puppy while he's still young. Owners with three or more dogs are more likely to have worked on their dog's socialization at an early age.

3. 54.8% said “come” is the most important command dogs should know. 26.9% picked “stay,” 12.9% decided on “sit” and .2% of dog owners, who may have thought it was a trick question, said “roll over” was the most important command.

4. It appears dogs are pretty well educated by their owners. 90.2% of dogs know how to sit, 83.8% said their dog knows how to stay, 82.1% come when called, 50.4% can fetch and 24% know how to roll over.

5. Dog training classes don't get high marks from dog owners. In fact, the majority of respondents, 53.1%, said they had never taken their dog to a training class, 32.5% had gone once and never returned, and only 14.4% were still taking their dog to his classes.

6. The majority of survey respondents work on training their dog 1 - 3 hours per week and 6.6% put in more than 20 hours a week. 22.4% admitted to spending 30 minutes or less a week, and 3.2% believe their dogs are perfect with no training necessary.

7. Dog owners who took their puppy to a socialization class said it made training their dog much easier. Only 4.5% of these owners said it didn't make any difference, and 9.6% who didn't take a class to help socialize their puppy thought it was harder to train their dog.

The good news that came out of this survey is 99.5% of respondents believe positive reinforcement is the best way to effectively train a dog, and at least 94% of owners do spend some time training their dog.

If you enjoyed this little quiz, Julia Williams has a purrfect trivia quiz for cat lovers that you should check out.

Photo by airwaves1

Read more articles by Linda Cole