Raising a pup to a fully-trained guide dog takes approximately 2 - 3 years. During this period, the dog goes through several learning phases.

Our training is based on positive reinforcement. The dogs are trained mainly through operant conditioning, which means that we attempt to evoke and subsequently reward the desired behaviour from the dog. Because a dog is interested in the reward, he will repeat the behaviour in the hope of receiving another reward. In this way, we area actually showing the dog what it is that we want him to do. In general, undesired behaviour will be ignored and an alternate, desired behaviour will be presented to him for which he will be rewarded. We will, for example, not punish the dog when he jumps up at us, but reward him when he again has all four paws on the ground. This way of working often requires a great deal of patience and a good sense of timing in order to reward the desired behaviour, but it makes the dog think and, in our experience, gives the best long-term results. Unfortunately, not all behaviour can be trained in this way. In a dangerous situation, for example, if the dog is chewing on an electrical cord, a quick response is of course needed and ignoring the behaviour is not an option!

There are different ways to reward a dog. Probably the best known and most used include treats, petting, playing, and verbal praise (“good boy”). Alternating between these different forms is called variable rewarding. In the first phases of the training, many treats and much play are used as rewards; petting and verbal praise are social rewards which become increasingly valuable to the dog once a strong bond has been formed with the owner. Treats are, in general, considered by most dogs to be a valuable reward.
The better the dog becomes at performing a certain exercise, the less frequently he will be rewarded. This is called interval rewarding. Decreasing the frequency of the rewards actually encourages the dog to keep doing his best, even when he is not given a reward. It is like playing the lottery! However, the rewards must never be taken away entirely.

Although all of our dogs are trained with the same principles in mind (based on positive reinforcement and being as clear as possible to the dog), every training is different. We always pay particular attention to the mental capacities and learning pace of the dog and adapt our training methods according the abilities of each individual dog as well as each individual client.