How to Train Dog to Answer the Phone

Teaching a dog to answer the phone: To teach a dog to answer the phone he needs to be conditioned first to answer to a bell. Each time the bell rings the trainer has the dog come near the phone and commands the dog "phone, phone" "Good, Good". The sounds of the bell then turns into the dogs signal to go near the phone. The next step consists on encouraging the dog to grab a hold of the phone with his mouth at the command of "Take it, take it". By holding the phone you command the dog to get near the person that is sitting down and that person needs to call the dog. The person then asks the dog to "give it, give it" and receives it in his or her hand, then after a few seconds the person gives the phone back to the dog and commands him to "Take it, take it" and then the trainer needs to take the dog back to the phone to hang the receiver up. This will have to be practiced many times until the dog is able to do it without help by responding immediately to the bell. It's very important to always praise the dog in order to motivate him to understand and help his owner. The base for all teaching consists on the formation of a well conditioned reaction which is obtained by the response of a specific movement along with a vocal command. Some trainers suggest giving the dog snacks and treats but some do not feel it is appropriate and think that congratulating and praising the dog is enough and dogs seem to accept either gladly.

Intelligent dogs: Getting into and studying the mind of a dog could be essential for us to understand some behaviors and mechanisms of behaviors as important factors to modulate responses, decreasing our irrational assumptions. This would then allow us to orient the dog's behavior to not only dominate the training but towards behaviors that involve intelligent behaviors to interpret them as such. One very debated and important problem is if intelligence and other behavioral patterns in the dog are instinctive or if they depend mainly on a training that conditions them.