Salukis are intelligent dogs, but training one of these elegant hounds can prove challenging for a novice owner which is one of the reasons they are not a good choice for first time dog owners. However, in the right hands and with people who know how to keep a Saluki focussed during a training session, these elegant hounds become obedient dogs although they never really lose their their high prey drive which is deeply embedded in their psyche.
The key to successfully training a Saluki is to make their initial training sessions short and fun so that puppies do not get bored. It's important for puppies to be taught the "basics" and for their training to begin in earnest when they are a little older. It takes a lot of time, patience and understanding on the part of an owner to train a Saluki.
Because they are so sensitive by nature, these hounds do not answer well to any sort of harsh correction or heavier handed training methods. They do, however, respond well to positive reinforcement. Owners need to remain gentle, yet firm and always fair when training a young Saluki if they want to achieve the best results all the while remembering that these hounds are highly intelligent and quite independent thinking dogs by nature which can make them quite a challenge to train.
