I ‘ve been wondering for a while what people want to know when they search for the phrase free dog training tips. it’s quite a common search term, with or without the word free. What dog or puppy training issues are they trying to resolve, what advice or hints on techniques or methods are they seeking?

I can make some pretty good educated guesses, since after having this site for several years I have a sense of what questions people have about their pets. They want help with potty training puppies, with crate training, with issues like jumping up on people or pulling on leash. Sometimes they have questions about a specific dog breed, though most of those questions seem to go right to the breed websites. Sometimes they might be hoping for secrets that a trainer might be able to give them.

I guess what puzzles me is that when I want to know something about dogs, I research it not so much under a broad phrase like dog training tips, but in a specific question. I might type into Google something about a dog’s bad habits of chewing or barking, or as I did recently, aggressive dogs. But then, I am a librarian by background, so I am used to focusing on exactly what I want to know. Come to think of it, people asked me general questions all the time at work, and I learned to query them on what they really were after. One example comes to mind: one time, someone asked me, “Do you have any books on horses?” It turned out that what he wanted to know was who won the Kentucky Derby in 1975. If I got started, I could go on in this vein with quite a few funny stories. Like the time a boy brought a black widow spider into the library to find out about its habits.

But back to the topic. I know what animal I’m supposed to be writing about here!

I have used this expression quite a bit myself. My weekly newsletter was called Dog Training Tips until I recently changed it. I covered a lot of things… I used the expression because it gave me leeway to write about anything canine that I wanted to! Here’s a list of the first couple of dozen dog training tips I wrote. After that, I switched over to blogging.

Well, it’s late and this is hardly the most focused article I’ve written lately. If you have any insight into why people use the term, do post a comment below!

[tags]free dog training tips[/tags]