In all cases it is best to punish a dog "red handed," but in no case should you punish him "red headed." Unless the dog knows for what he is being punished, you are like Xerxes whipping the Hellespont for wrecking his ships, except that a dog has more feelings than the sea. The best way to be sure that the dog knows is to catch him in the very act. This has the disadvantage, however, of making it likely that you will be in a temper.
No dog should ever be punished when you have not got perfect control over yourself. The patience of Job was never tried by a healthy, terrier puppy, or it might have reached its limit. A spoiled rug, the flower-beds wrecked, a new hat chewed up, slippers and rubbers all over the house, religious disobedience, all these things do cultivate a temper, but temper and dog-training do not live together successfully.
In training a dog be sure that he knows exactly what you want him to do, and then be sure that he always does it. Make obedience a habit. In time, it will come as natural to him as breathing. When you say "Come here," see that he comes, and let him understand that "Lie down" means just that and nothing more. It is very useful to have a dog that lives in the house "stay put" when placed in a chair or a corner, and this should be part of his education. It is very bad dog manners to jump up on visitors. Even to those who love dogs it is often disagreeably bothersome. It is bad enough in a toy dog, but in an Airedale it is worse in the ratio of five pounds to fifty.
I am not personally in favor of teaching a dog tricks. A trick dog soon learns to "love the limelight," and will be continually begging to be allowed to show off. Besides, I have an inborn dislike to seeing a dog doing stunts, and I know the feeling is shared by others who are fond of a good dog. It seems a silly thing to see a big, strong terrier begging or walking on his hind legs. It may be very clever for poodles and pugs, but with a man's dog—and the terriers are all "man's dogs"—it always calls to my mind a painting in the Louvre in which Hercules is depicted sitting at the feet of Venus industriously winding up a ball of yarn. However, tastes differ, and these tricks are all easy to teach a bright pupil, who has already learned the lesson of minding.
When the city dog goes out for a walk his training gets its real test. What a lovely spectacle it is to see a dog owner rushing and yelling after a dog who runs about paying no more attention to him than to the clouds overhead. It is a sight that has but one equal, that of a portly, pompous gentleman chasing his own hat. Even if a dog is perfectly trained indoors, he may break loose when first taken out on the street, but he can easily be made to understand that master is to be boss on the street as well as in the house. One of the best habits a city dog can have is that of keeping close to his owner's heels crossing streets. A dog is perfectly well able to cross a crowded street, but in busy thoroughfares a dog and his master are apt to get separated, and all may not be so fortunate as the Washington physician who had his champion Airedale returned with a note which read:
"Dere Doc—Here is your Yeller Dog. Will you Please give me 15 cents I hate to ask so much but i had to fead him 2 days."
The Airedale who lives in the country is more fortunate than his brother in town. His preliminary education is just the same, but he gets a college course in hunting, and maybe a little post-graduate work in cattle driving. All that has been said about house-breaking and teaching to mind applies with equal force to the country dog. If there are not so many interested spectators to make it embarrassing it is just as provoking to have a runaway dog in the meadows and pastures as in the streets and avenues. A single motor at sixty or seventy miles an hour on the turnpike is harder for a dog to dodge than the whole flood of traffic that streams up and down the city thoroughfares. So, city or country, teach your dog to mind.
An Airedale will take as naturally to rats, woodchucks, and such vermin as a lot of little yellow ducklings will to the mill pond. But to make assurance doubly sure, it is best to introduce him to mice or small rats when he is four or five months old, then leading on and on till you can end with the biggest game found in America. This is the way terriers are broken in England. It has been found that if a terrier is jumped bang at Mr. Woodchuck, for example, he may be spoiled by biting off more than he can chew the first time.
In the Rockies, where Airedales are used on grizzly and mountain lion, the dogs hunt in packs, and the old dogs train the youngsters. Example and experience make an excellent pair of tutors, and the work is such that unless the lessons are grasped pretty quickly, there will be a dead dog.
The gradual system of breaking applies to water. The veins of the Airedale are filled with the blood of the otter-hound, and from this ancestor he has inherited a love for the water. Practically all Airedales will swim naturally without any training at all, but once in a while there comes along one who does not take to water. He should be coaxed in, not taken by the scruff of the neck and pitched overboard. Methods like that are not generally successful when dogs are concerned.