Did you send your dog to a puppie school, or train it yourself?

No, we didn't. It just sort of happened right away. I think he goes more by sounds with us though. He does understand sit, stay and no. Sometimes I have to make the noise "uh huh" very forcefully and he'll back up. He's a very good dog and I hope our next one is like him. But then again, our current dog is nervous. He just has a nervous personality and he's careful about what he does.

I don't know if we have any puppy schools in my town .. or if we have they would be quite iffy about having a stray dog into training .. many people here are so snobbish. If a dog is not a pure breed they'd immediately assume that dog is no good ...

Where are you located? There are chains in my area that sell pet food and supplies that also do pet adoptions and teach owners how to train their pets. There is a nice fee to have this done, but you learn with your dog instead of having someone else teach it.

Hmm .. what about Romania?

I'm struggling to make this project work so that with the money we'll earn in the future and the "popularity" we'll be able to raise more awareness towards the tragic situation we face regarding stray dogs in my country. We're in 2 extremes here: we have people with pure breeds looking down on us with our not so 'valuable' doggies, but at the same time we have thousands of strays on the street dying of hunger or killed by "good" people.

I took Mauser to PetsMark for puppy training but he has a mind of his own and didn't do well in class. He does listen to our commands and follows thru but when it comes to walking, he takes the lead and doesn't listen well to what we say.

No, but my employer pays for all my training, seminar fees, hotel rooms, transportation, meals, and equipment. I love my job!

I did basic obedience with my female with a trainer but alot of what she taught I would not do as bloodhounds on track are different than a house pet going for a walk. So I train my own for tracking/trailing and such.
Gibby wish someone help me out but then again I only volunteer with law enforcement not work for them.
We are going for non profit organization so get donations and such otherwise all out of pocket.
My biggest problem is finding volunteers to help me train here.

Have you ever heard of The Canine Training Academy in Canon City, CO? I am going for the 3rd time this March and it is an excellent training school that is reasonably priced. You can read about it in the link at their site. Lots of volunteer hound teams and LE K9 teams from all over the country attend there. If you look on the list of "past students" I would be the "Morgan County Sheriff" representative.

I agree that finding people to lay trails is a huge burden. I train with patrol dogs and our tracking/trailing traning involved a short trail that mimicks USPCA standards and it is totally lame.

Thank you for that will look into it more..The laying of tracks I have even asked Boyscout troop leader if any of his older kids would help and answer was no.. I live in area with alot of wooded area and usually make my kids do trails that they can sit a hour or less as not trained them with GPS yet to make trail leave different direction and return later so long trails are up to me and wife and other handlers run dogs.