The Irish Water Spaniel is known to be highly intelligent, they are not only quick on their feet, but they learn new things extremely fast too. As such, their training has to start early and it has to be consistent and always fair for these dogs to mature into well-behaved and obedient characters. It cannot be stressed enough the importance of early socialisation for an IWS. As soon as a dog has been fully vaccinated, they need to be introduced to as many new situations, people, animals and other dogs as possible for them to grow up to be well-rounded adult dogs.
An Irish Water Spaniel is slow to mature which has to be taken into account when they are being trained. It's best to take things slowly always showing an IWS a lot of patience and understanding in order to get the best results. They are sensitive dogs by nature and do not respond well to any sort of harsh correction or heavy handed training, but they do answer well to gentle, positive reinforcement. Their training also has to be as diverse as possible to keep an IWS focused because if things get too repetitive, these intelligent dogs soon lose interest in a training session.
