If you have read my first hub on dog-training, or rather how we didn't train our first dog and what happened as a result, you know I am convinced it is good for a dog to be trained, and stretched to reach it's full potential.

Now for someone who has bought a dog for their kids, or on the spur of the moment, and who has maybe never trained a dog to do much more than sit and come when called (and if it feels like it) then you may be a little lost as to where to start, and what to train.

In the UK there are a number of disciplines that dogs are trained in, some more interesting than others, some requiring a reasonable level of fitness, and some requiring little more than patience and ingenuity.

In this hub I am going to make a few suggestions for what you can train your dog. I don't intend telling you the how; I have already written the best part of a website on this before I discovered hubpages, and do not want my content to be flagged as duplicate; but I hope you will give some consideration to the following suggestions, some of which I am familiar with (I confess I have never taught my dogs to dance, but that is because I have two left feet!).

 I will put a few book suggestions in a pod at the bottom of the text, Enjoy!

train your dog as a retriever. Now this is so much more than teaching your dog to fetch. Besides teaching your dog basic obedience: -

• the Sit!
• the Down!
• the Come!
• the Leave!
• the basic Fetch!

You will also need to teach it to

• understand verbal commands
• follow visual commands
• obey whistle commands

When your dog has reached a good level of understanding and obedience in these you will teach it to: -

• use its nose when it cannot see the dummy
• ignore an obvious dummy if you tell it there is another one that it has not seen first
• remember three or four seen dummies and fetch an unseen that it has no idea exists because it believes you when you tell it
• follow directions at a hundred yards as easily as if it were in your home
• ignore other animals and livestock

 Act as a tracking dog. This does require a companion to lay a trail, or that you travel out without the dog to lay a trail. In many ways today, since we do not have many criminals running around the country, this goes back to the days when dogs were wolves, and would follow a blood trail. You can I believe buy scent to lay a trail, but a normal dog should be able to follow a trail a few hours old. In practical terms, such dogs are used to track wounded deer in the UK, and almost any breed can be used, although if you are training a dog specifically for tracking wounded deer, you may be better off and maximise your chances of success by using one of the retrieving or HPR breeds.

If you find this a little constraining, why not push the boat out and train a dog in the various facets of search and rescue? I was lucky enough to stumble across a copy of "READY The Training of the Search and Rescue Dog" which is an absolutely cracking book, even suggesting where you can get bits of body to bury! (Seriously!). I will put a book list at the bottom of the page.

Dancing. Well what can I say? There is an annual display of dog dancing on Brit TV, during the Crufts Dog Show. Brilliant but not for me!

Agility. My wife has always trained our dogs in agility, and loves it. It is a discipline that any dog can master, and the terriers seem to love it. Some of the bigger beasts may have trouble doing the courses justice, especially when they have to run through the tunnel, but it is fascinating to watch!