I'm Peter Butler and with many years of experience with my own dogs, I set up New Forest Dog Training to work with owners to help them achieve the best results, be it a working dog or pet.
My Story
I started learning from my own dogs in 1984 and have been learning from dogs ever since.​ Over the years which followed I made many mistakes, none serious or with serious consequences, but important in that this taught me that if training goes wrong or is not working, we should look firstly to ourselves to see where the fault lay.
We are in charge of the training process so we must take responsibility for it, take the credit when it goes well and the blame when it does not. For these reasons, you will find training your dog a very humbling experience, and a challenging one in ensuring that our dog enjoys the process. Remember, we have no right to anything from our dogs, we must earn everything.
Communication and the understanding of how dogs communicate with we humans is the key to successful training. Without this understanding, we cannot communicate effectively with our dogs.
It is critically important also to keep training principles simple, it is the application of these principles which present the challenge. With this in mind it is clear that training is a mainly mental process supported by our verbal language and body language.
I hope that the information which follows will help your initial understanding of the Training Principles we work to and to understand our Training Mission;
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‘To apply the appropriate level of control and discipline whilst developing the character, instinct and ability of the dog.’
