Check out this very important study on bloat..if you have a dog 50 lbs or over you need to read this! This could save your dog’s life!

http://www.neapolitan.org/cms/id/new-purdue-bloat-study/

Train on!

Doug

When last we spoke I mentioned that Frasier had been given up because he bit an owner that I had a few suspicions about. Although the wife told me that her husband was a gentle man, I had my doubts.

Dogs who bite their owners do so for a number of reasons.
One of those can be because the owner is not the leader, the dog is. That could happen with someone who is “gentle.” But this guy sounded hard and angry over the phone. Plus the circumstances of the bite seemed a bit out of whack. More about that later.

Anyway, before seeing the dog I had to keep an open mind. He might have been the monster the guy portrayed. I doubted it, but better safe than sorry, so I was careful in planning “the meeting”.

I would meet Frasier at the boarding kennel where the rescue
organization kept some of their dogs. I would also meet with the foster, a lady I done a session with some years back. I was
prepared to meet a “beast.”

We got there about the same time and after talking for a bit,
Frasier was brought out to us. He appeared to weigh between 50 and 60 pounds, a Shepherd mix. He was very distracted, contantly searching back and forth both visually and scenting. AND he was contantly whining. He appeared to be in a great deal of emotional pain…as you might expect. What he didn’t appear to be was dangerous.

The foster and I took him for a walk. He was distracted and whining the whole walk. He had no problem with me touching him on the head or the back or walking behind him.

He had no problem with me approaching him or walking away from him. He did seem to have a problem being away from his family.

Since I only got one opportunity to speak with both the wife and the husband I didn’t know if he showed signs of separation anxiety at home, but he certainly was anxious on the walk. I also had given him every opportunity to show that he was dangerous and there was no sign of it.

The foster then felt confident to take Frasier with the
understanding that if there were any problems she could call me. We went over some strategies to make sure that he got over his anxiousness as quickly as possible and we ended the meeting at that point.

Sounds pretty clinical doesn’t it? Well I talked with the foster
several times and it actually took Frasier over a week before he stopped constantly whining and pacing. By the way the foster and I went over how NOT to reinforce the anxiousness and begin to train “happiness,” so I know she didn’t cause his anxiety to linger.

Here was my diagnosis after talking with the husband and wife, meeting Frasier and consulting with the foster: The wife and daughter loved and spoiled the dog and as a result unknowing “trained” him that he was the leader in the house. Not unusual. As a matter of fact probably the main cause for all K-9 behavior problems, after not enough exercise.

And all this “love and attention” was the cause of the extended and very intense separation anxiety.

Further the husband was WAY too hard on the dog: In fact the foster told me that the wife confessed to her that when the husband got bitten the first time he had grabbed the dog by the haunches and yanked him out from under a table.

Frightening enough that a dog might bite out of fear, but for a dog that is “trained” to be the leader over humans, to be grabbed like that would be “unacceptable.”

Neither I, at the meeting nor the foster in her home, saw any of that. Then again we treated Frasier kindly and gently and also in a way that showed him his proper place as a dog, not a leader of humans.

What’s sad is that I had explained these problems and issues to the husband PRIOR to meeting Frasier. A one hour training session, NOT with Frasier, but with the humans in the house would have solved it all.

But because the father “knows so much about obedience” a
little girl is missing her dog..and a dog is missing his family.
Sad.

We can only hope Frasier finds a great new home. As of this writing he is doing fine in his foster home.

So after all of this can you guess what the biggest obstacle is to a well-trained and behaved dog? Think about it and until next time…

Train on!

Doug

If you haven’t read the previous post a rescue organization called me and asked if I would talk to an owner who had been bitten by a dog that had been adopted from said rescue organization.

My first conversation was with the wife who told me that her husband was a gentle man and had not harmed or over-corrected the dog at any time. In fact, he was scared of the dog as a result of being bitten.

However the circumstances that were described in the first bite led me to believe that there was more than at first I was told.

Supposedly the husband called the dog to him and when he didn’t come, reached for and grabbed the dog from underneath the table where the dog was and pulled him out. And then the dog bit the husband.

None of this was “feeling” right to me, so after talking with the wife I requested a conversation with the husband. I found it interesting that the wife called me the next night and then she put the husband on the line.

Now I’m usually a pretty good reader of persons, but I also have to say that there is plenty of room for error in trying to read someone over the phone. However if this man was gentle you couldn’t prove it by me as a result of this phone call.

While he didn’t sound furious, he did have a hardness to his voice that you wouldn’t expect after hearing his wife’s description. He was clearly upset and a bit angry as a result of the incident.

Honestly I can’t hold that against anyone. It’s upsetting to have a dog, any dog much less your own, bite you. So my goal was to make sure he knew that I understood and then also to let him know that this was my specialty.

I described some of the dogs that were similar and some much worse in terms of behavior than his dog and I outlined how I had worked with owners and the dogs to solve the behavior problems. I was careful not to minimize his situation, but I also wanted him to know that there was hope.

Actually much more than hope. I didn’t say it to him, but I felt that this was actually not a tough case at all. What he described is not all that uncommon and pretty easy to fix. What I did was mention that I thought we could fix this, but I couldn’t make any promises until we started working with the dog. Now remember I had yet to see the dog.

After mentioning this I then asked him a simple question: “If I can fix this and we can get him behaving properly, would you keep the dog?”

You see the rescue organization called me because the family had been making noise about returning the dog. The organization was more than willing to take the dog back, but wanted to know first if he was dangerous. If he was dangerous then they obviously didn’t want to adopt him out again. So the ideal situation would be if I could help the owners so the dog’s behavior would be fixed and they would keep him.

Ideal for everyone. The wife and daughter loved him. And I assumed that if I could show them what was needed to get him behaving properly then the husband would go back to loving him too.

So as I said I asked him the simple question, “If I can fix this and we can get him behaving properly, would you keep the dog?” Without skipping so much as a beat he immediately replied:

“Absolutely not. I would not consider it. I’ve had dogs before and I’ve obedience trained them. They always knew what they were supposed to do and they always knew when I was disappointed in them. When he bit me he came at me hard and he wanted to hurt me. I have a daughter. There’s no way I’m keeping him.”

I asked him, “Have you ever over-corrected this dog? Ever hit him?”

“No.”

The wife was on the other line and she interrupted.

“How about the time he didn’t come to you right away and you kind of kicked him when he came in the door?”

The husband ignored that.

I then asked him if the dog slept in the bed.

“No. Well he was on my daughter’s bed when he bit me this time, but he’s not allowed on it. He sometimes used to sleep in my daughter’s bed, but we stopped that.”

I mentioned to him that sleeping in the bed is a serious “no-no” and can help create a dog that feels like a leader over humans and many times just correcting human behavior changes dog behavior. He wasn’t budging.

“Look I know about training obedience. I’ve done it with the other dogs I’ve had.”

“I understand, however this is not about obedience. Now the fact that you know a lot about obedience will help this process, but this is not about obedience training and fixing this is not about corrections.”

He responded very quickly.

“Look we’re not going to keep this dog.”

I responded back just as quickly.

“Ok, well then we don’t have anymore to talk about. I’ll take it up with the rescue organization.”

I have to tell you guys two things. First of all, he irritated me because of his obvious anger and that was not how he or his wife portrayed him. Second, he seemed arrogant and resistant to learning something new. The result of that is a girl who loves a dog will not have her dog anymore.

I didn’t think going into this that the dog was completely at fault. I will admit that I had a suspicion that he was angry and had done something to the dog, but I also wanted to leave plenty of room for him to show me I was wrong.

The most telling piece of evidence against him as far as I was concerned however is when he said he would not take the dog back, even if I could fix it. In all my years of doing this I have never had anyone say that.

Now it was time to meet the dog. I was getting myself prepared to meet the “beast”!

Stay tuned for part 3!

 Train on!

Doug

“Sure, what’s going on?”

She told me that dog had bitten his owner twice, 3 years apart, the last time being about a week earlier.

“What were the circumstances of the bites?”

She told me that the first bite, 3 years or so earlier (I think I
have the timeframe right) happened when the dog wouldn’t come to the father. The father then pulled the dog from beneath a table and as a result the father was bitten.

The last time, about a week earlier had been when the father was taking the dog off his daughter’s bed…hmmmm.

The president of the rescue organization asked me, “Do you think we need to put the dog down?”

I’m not prepared to say that any dog needs to be put down until I can get the chance to observe the dog. That’s a serious move to make, especially given that some of the things I’d heard made me think that this might not be a case of a “dog-based” dog problem.

Before I came to any conclusions though I would need to talk to the owners and see the dog.

Two days later the wife called me and I got a chance to ask some questions. I asked her if the dog slept on the bed. At first she said, “No.” Then she said, “Well not anymore. He’s slept on my daughter’s bed before, but we don’t allow that anymore.”

I also asked if he had been corrected hard at anytime. Hearing that the father had pulled him out from under a table just didn’t sit right with me. My gut was telling me something was going on here.

I asked her if her husband had ever hit the dog and she said no, her husband was a gentle man and in fact was scared of the dog as a result of what had happened.

I mentioned to her the many owners and dogs that I had worked with that had similar problems and how we had solved them, teaching the dogs to behave…and teaching owners how their behavior had either created the problem or reinforced it.

Finally I mentioned to her that I thought we could solve this, but it would help if I could talk to her husband.

She agreed and promised to have her husband call me the next day.

That would prove to be a most interesting conversation!

To be continued…

So what does this have to do with dog training?

Well, I was talking to one of my clients. She has an Australian Cattle Dog mix, Mya who is relatively intense. We’ve been working with her to teach her to focus on her owner and also be calm, especially on a walk. She’s a bit dog aggressive.

Sarah, her owner tells me that Mya’s made quite a bit of progress on walks and also settling down in the house. She is a different dog and generally easier to deal with.

Sarah has done a lot of work with Mya and also has changed her own behavior quite a bit. The work with Mya, although not complete, is going well. Which is why what Sarah was seeing in her dog had her puzzled.

She told me last week that Mya had been driving her crazy; pacing, whining and generally acting antsy to the point of being irritating.

“What’s that all about? Why is she doing that?”

I started asking a few questions. I wanted to know what had changed in either Sarah’s life or Mya’s routine. Nothing came to mind at first.

Sarah is a triathlete and so I asked her how her workouts had been going. She wasn’t feeling well and had a leg injury. As a result of that and because it had been so cold she hadn’t been running in awhile.

I mentioned to her that the cold weather might have “fired Mya up.” Many times dogs will get a bit rowdy with a weather change. Cold weather can crank up some energy.

“Oh my gosh, you know what?”

I didn’t know where she was going with this.

“What?”

“Well since my injury I haven’t been running and so Mya hasn’t been running either. Do you think that could be what’s causing her to be so irritating?”

“Could be. Can you take her on a long walk, if you can’t run?”

She said that she could definitely do that.

“Well get her walking again and let me know how it goes.”

Now I haven’t heard back yet, but usually with dog behavior, no news is good news. Of course if Mya continues the whining and pacing then a trip to the vet will be in order, but something tells me that a good long walk will do the trick, BUT…

I told Sarah, “Make sure that when you take Mya out for a long walk, you don’t take her out when she’s doing the whining/pacing routine. Let her settle down first, then take her out. Since she loves to go walking if you take her out when she cranks up the whining she will link up the behaviors (I whine and pace and generally act obnoxious and then Sarah takes me out! Yea whining and pacing!). What you want is for Mya to link up in her mind that settling down is what gets her out the door and walking. That way calm behavior will be reinforced!”

So remember, a weather change, especially a cooler change, can really crank up your dog’s energy and create some irritating behavior! The answer is exercise, BUT wait for your dog to settle and calm down completely before going out for the long walk!

 Turned out that she wasn’t the usual dog owner that calls me. She knew quite a bit about training and also quite a bit about her breed.

Airedales are not known for being the most serious of dogs. Quite a bit of working potential, but kind of clownish and not the longest attention span in the K-9 world.

Airedales are a great all-around dog but when training you run the risk of boring them and as a result losing your audience.

She was well aware of all of this and so she didn’t need me giving her training advice…but she did want to ask about the behavior problem. We talked for quite awhile and I asked her a lot of questions.

I went through the whole checklist I use when determining what the dog problem is and what the human problem is.

Most owners unknowingly perpetuate dog behavior problems.  I can usually get to the bottom of this with a lot questions, but with this lady she had all the bases covered.

Ok, Doug you know so much, what was the problem? Well just prior to me having to say to her, “I’m just going to have to see the dog,” I asked her one more key question.

By the way, I hardly ever say, “I’m just going to have to see the dog.” That is usually a trainer’s way to get the session booked, which is just another way to say, “get my money!”

Now, I have no problem charging for my services. And I’m not cheap, but we trainers can certainly get a client started with some free tips to help get the whole process started. You don’t have to see the dog for that.

In addition, getting the owner started with some pre-session work can make everything go more quickly and easily once the trainer gets there. My experience has been that I’ll build a lot more good will by helping people then by soaking them for money. Good will usually translates into more business coincidentally.

Anyway, I was just about to the point where I was going to have to say, “I’m going to have to see the dog” when I asked this very key question: “What are you feeding him?”

She was feeding one of the so-called gourmet brands. So I asked her if she had the bag.

“Yes.”

“Good, would you read me the ingredients?” Usually commercial dog food doesn’t have enough real meat in it and way too much in the way of carbs (grains, etc). Too many carbs can sometimes equal too much energy.

What do you think is more essential to K-9 nutrition, meat or corn? Meat or wheat? Meat or soybean?

Anyway she started reading and I was listening triumphantly and about to comment on the large amount of carb content when she gasped.

“Oh my gosh!”

“What?”

She then told me. “This stuff has green tea extract in it! That’s caffeine!”

Her puppy was jacked up on caffeine! When she changed the food, her airedale puppy settled down and behaved more normally.

So the moral of the story? Do your research on commercial dog food…stay tuned and I’ll have more info for you on that soon!

Train on!

Doug

Get them here:
http://allabouttrainingyourdog.com/insiders-guide/

Now on to training info!

One of the things you need to remember is that teaching your dog to behave properly is a progressive process. You need to stick with the training over time…and understand that dogs don’t always just have one “problem.” Sometimes many problems make up the “whole dog.”

For example, just last week I visited a couple, I’ll call them Brent and Betty, with two Great Danes.

The male, who I’ll call Bo, weighs 140 lbs. He is totally unruly,
barks excessively, won’t come when called, pulls on walks and also jumps on people.

Bo was staying in Betty’s parent’s backyard because he was put out of the couple’s apartment complex. He nipped one of the service guys, who was acting suspiciously.

It might have been easier for Bo to stay if he were normally better behaved, but his reputation for unruliness and his size got him banished from the apartment.

When I got to the parent’s house, Brent, Betty and the parents met me out front. Bo was in the backyard. Betty’s father told me that Bo “is an idiot. He doesn’t listen and if you go back there he will jump all over you.”

So Betty’s Mom and Dad watched from inside the house as Betty, Brent and I went into the backyard with “the beast”!

Now, I’m no fool so if they had told me that Bo was vicious, I
certainly wouldn’t have just walked into his backyard. I would have him brought out to me on a leash in that case.

Nevertheless, a 140 lb dog that jumps on people is not to be taken lightly. I was careful as I entered the backyard.

In about two minutes Bo was sitting quietly on leash ready to go on a walk. I used no force; only a few “ah, ah’s” and appropriate petting. He calmed down pretty easily; no barking, no jumping, no unruliness. He actually lay down and then came to each of us as we called him for a reward.

He tried to jump on Betty once or twice. I showed her how to
calmly re-direct him before he actually jumped up. In less than 5 minutes he was a “new dog.” I told Betty, “We should be doing this on TV!” She agreed.

What we did was address Bo, the whole dog. That included his
relationship to his human owners. See, I don’t train the dog so much as the human and how he or she relates to the dog.

When I showed Brent and Betty and the parents how to change their behavior around Bo, then all of his behaviors changed. He suddenly was a “new” dog and his problems disappeared.

Now if Brent, Betty and the parents don’t stick to the plan we
created, then Bo will go right back to being the “bad dog” he was before. The responsibility is theirs to stick to the program for Bo’s sake.

Now, I’d like to ask you a favor: Besides, excessive barking, what are the other problems you have with your dog?

Hit “REPLY” and just send me a list. Don’t worry about writing it all that well, just get the list down and let me know about your dog’s “problems.” Then keep your eyes open for something very cool in the near future!

Until then, Train on!

Doug

P.S. Get the “The Insider’s Guide to Best Dog Behavioral Secrets”
here:
http://allabouttrainingyourdog.com/insiders-guide/

The problem is not very many know how to tell you how to actually be the leader in your relationship with your dog…oh there are catch phrases and concepts but actual steps you can take are conveniently absent.

Well go here for some concrete info. A 3-part newsletter. Now it doesn’t cover everything, I’ll have something for you later that will do that. (I’ve been working real hard on that for you!) But it is a place for you to start.

Check it out here:

http://www.allabouttrainingyourdog.com/video/genuine_alpha_training/

 Keep your eyes open for some really cool stuff I’ll be offering soon!

 Train On!

 Doug

Go here and get on the list to get some great info and tips!

Stop the barking dog

If you remember that dogs are the ultimate “learn fast, real fast how to get what I want” machines then you can use that to teach and solve.

Rewards are the key. Obedience skills and behavior problems alike are learned, very quickly with rewards. Once you start to think that way then working with your dog becomes MUCH easier…and solving problems becomes much easier too!

Not too long ago I surveyed my focus group and they said the number one problem they were having with their dogs was problem barking. So I created a PDF to address that. You can get that PDF right here:

Stop the barking dog

There’s all kinds of cool info in there about how to stop problem barking.

Click on the link below and get it right here:

Stop the barking dog

As always,

Train On!

Doug

I guarantee I’ll read them all and I’ll try to answer them in future posts or newsletters.

Train on!

Doug