Best Trained Dog Act

Britain’s Got Talent 2015 Jules and Matisse

Double act Jules and Matisse won the public vote with their adorable semi-final routine.

Matisse brings another little friend along for the final.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Dog training is teaching a response to cues or commands, or the performance of actions not necessarily natural to the dog, and also raising a dog accommodated to his environment by modifying natural digging, barking and eliminating behaviors. Dog training is defined as the purposeful changing of a dog’s behavior.

Dog training can be socialization to the domestic environment, basic obedience training or training for specialized activities including law enforcement, search and rescue, hunting, working with livestock, assistance to people with disabilities, entertainment, dog sports, detection and protecting people or property.

Dog training history

Although research into how dogs learn and into cross-species communication has changed the approach to dog training in recent decades, understanding the role of early trainers and scientists contributes to an appreciation of how particular methods and techniques developed.^[4]

Dog training before 1900

In around 127-116 B.C. a Roman farmer, Marcus Varro, recorded advice on raising and training puppies for herding livestock. His writings indicate that not only was dog training for specific tasks well established, but that the value of early training was recognized.

In 1848 W. N. Hutchinson published his book Dog Breaking: The Most Expeditious, Certain and Easy Method, Whether Great Excellence or Only Mediocrity Be Required, With Odds and Ends for Those Who Love the Dog and the Gun. Primarily concerned with training hunting dogs such as pointers and setters, the book advocates a form of reward-based training, commenting on men who have “a strong arm and a hard heart to punish, but no temper and no head to instruct” and suggesting “Be to his virtues ever kind. Be to his faults a little blind.” Stephen Hammond, a writer for Forest and Stream magazine, advocated in his 1882 book Practical Training that hunting dogs be praised and rewarded with meat for doing the correct behavior.

Best Trained Dog Act