Although the Elkhound is an intelligent dog and one that forms very strong bonds with their owners, they can be quite difficult to train. Their education has to start early with puppies being taught the "boundaries" as soon as they arrive in their new homes. With this said, an Elkhound would always be ready to test these limits just to see how far they can go. As such their training has to be consistent and always fair throughout a dog’s life.
Like many other hounds, they are quite sensitive by nature which means they need to be handled with a very firm, yet gentle hand. The key to keeping a dog focussed is to make their training sessions short, fun and interesting. If the sessions are too long and too repetitive, an Elkhound would soon get bored and loose interest, making it that much harder to train them. It takes a lot of patience, understanding and a good sense of humour to train an Elkhound which is just one of the reasons why they are not the best choice for novice owners.
