The Advantage of Using a Dog Training Whistle When Training Your Dog
June 16th, 2009
One of the training aids that is becoming popular with dog owners, is the dog training whistle. Throughout this article, we’ll look at what a dog training whistle is, it’s purpose, and the advantage to using it for training your dog.
The concept of a whistle, to be used for training dogs, was invented by Francais Galton. A human ear can only hear sounds, or frequencies, below 20000 Hz. Dog whistles have a frequency range of between 16000 Hz and 22000 Hz. So for the most part, the frequency range of the whistle is largely out of the human hearing range. And while it is possible to use a dog whistle to inflict pain on a dog as part of behavior modification training, we will focus on its more common use, which is to get a dog’s attention.
The purpose of the dog training whistle is to give a dog a command for a previously specified behavior, when the dog is some distance away from a trainer. As an example, hunters in the field can not really yell or shout commands to their canine companions. Not only will fellow hunters become totally annoyed, but any potential prey would be turned away. Besides, their dog’s ears are far more tuned in to the frequency of a whistle than they are to a voice.
The advantages of using a training whistle with your dog can actually be rather important to a dog owner, no matter where they live.
A whistle will always be a more consistent sound than a human voice to your dog. The tone of our voice will vary, depending on our emotional states but, the tone of a specific whistle doesn’t change. Besides that, a silent dog whistle will allow you to give a loud command to your dog across a considerable distance, something you could not do with your vocals alone. Not only would you totally annoy the neighbors but, your dog probably wouldn’t hear your calls.
If you have trained your dog to respond to commands given by whistle rather than by words, than whenever your dog hears your dog whistle, he will respond to whatever he was trained to do. The training whistles are usually adjustable for different pitches because, some pitches are heard better by some dogs than by others. In your initial training sessions with your dog, you will learn to adjust your whistle appropriately.
If you are interested in utilizing a dog training whistle to train your dog, a good place to begin some additional research is by looking through the gun dog training books or by visiting a gun dog association if you have one in your area. These folks are experts in this area and will be the best resource available to answer all your questions before you start working with your own dog. You might also visit a sporting goods store and seek out knowledgeable sales staff.
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