Ignacio Alarcón Peral
I have been a dog trainer for more than35 years, and throughout my professional career as a canine educator I have completed many training and dog-training courses.
Our understanding of dogs has changed enormously as their behaviour has been studied in greater depth and they have increasingly been recognised as a species with its own characteristics rather than simply as wolves.
We have moved from seeing the dog as a beast to be broken or dominated to understanding that dogs are intelligent beings with a complex emotional world.
Over the years I have watched dog education evolve, from security and police work to canine sport.
From assistance dogs to animal-assisted therapy, and from rescue dogs to detection and scent work.
From methods based on force to positive training systems, and even to spiritual and virtual approaches.
I remember a time when Spain had only a handful of largely self-taught trainers, usually linked to the security forces. Today there has been an explosion of educators, trainers and self-proclaimed gurus.
We have moved from an almost unregulated field to a form of regulation that, in my view, is still open to considerable debate — a subject for another time.
I have gone from being a student to passing on what I know, and I never stop learning.
I have competed and served as a judge in several disciplines:IPO, V.P.G., IGP, OCI, AGILITY, RING, etc.
I have bred working and sport dogs.
But above all, I try tohelp people who genuinely want to understand their dogs and solve problems.
In my view, modern dog education should have one central aim: the wellbeing of our canine companion in balance with their human family.
I have collaborated on books and with the press, radio and television, although I personally would not write a definitive book on the subject because the relationship between us and our canine companions continues to evolve every day.
