More on KentOnline
Dog training instructor Dima Yeremenko will be in the main Paws in the Park arena with a pack of dogs wowing crowds with his display of obedience confidently entitled the Good Boy Dog School.
Dima uses a tried and tested system of rewarding each dog for good behaviour with a small amount of their regular food.
He said: “There will be 15 dogs with me, two of them are mine including a foster dog I recently ended up with who never went home! The others are dogs from our training classes.
“What I will be showing is that no advanced skills are required, every dog wants to learn to be good, so we need to get the dogs to work on our side rather than against it. All that stuff about “dominance”, and “leader of the pack”, goes out of the window.
“What I demonstrate is what I would call it the power of reward or just simply how much you can achieve if you give your dog the chance to be earning reward, whatever they would eat at home. Just by doing that people will see how much you can achieve.”
Dima says he loves the recent “dancing with dogs” phenomenon, as seen with Ashleigh and Pudsey on Britain’s Got Talent, because it is a great way of interacting with your pet.
“A common problem with new dog owners is that they ignore the dog’s emotional potential. I like that slogan; “Dogs are people too”. They have brains that are as sophisticated as ours. They need to be using their brains and any interaction which helps a dog to engage is good.”
He advised people bringing a new dog to the show for the first time to take things easy and don’t push a dog to go into busy areas if you are at all worried how it may react.
He said: “Realise your limitations and don’t throw yourself in the middle of the action.”
Paws in the Park is on Saturday, September 22 and Sunday, September 23, at the Kent Showground, Detling, from 9.30am to 5pm. Adult admission £10, children and seniors £7.50. Family tickets and weekend camping tickets also available. Dogs are, of course, very welcome. A few of the ‘have-a-go’ events will have a small entry fee (around £1), with proceeds going to charity. For more information see wwwpawsinthepark.net