I was interviewed (Pit Bulls, Rottweilers Stereotyped) on television this week about the tragedy that happened near Round Rock over the weekend. It was strange how everyone wants a comment from you when there is a dog related accident and how they really want you to categorize the dogs as being the problem. The unique thing this time was that the reporter didn’t really want that.
I was impressed that I had the opportunity to say that virtually any dog could bite someone but that good training and socialization certainly mitigates the likelihood that it will happen. I did get to say that on T.V. but there was so much more that didn’t make it off the cutting room floor. Things like how important I believe the AKC Canine Good Citizen Test is, and how I believe that every dog should pass it before it can be taken into publicly owned spaces.
I also didn’t get in there how it’s NOT just Pits and Rotties that cause trouble. As a matter of fact some of the finest dogs that I’ve trained have been pits and pit mixes. It’s important for people to know that many times the Media doesn’t really know what kind of dogs are involved and just say they are pits for the scare value.
I guess what I can take away from the interview was that the reporter did make an effort to stress how important proper training is, especially when you have a powerful, big dog.
Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com
A daily Dose of Dog Training:
An ongoing series.
If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that I’ve been a professional dog trainer for quite some time and have been a non professional trainer for even longer.
Most of the clients I work with don’t tell me to "take my dog away and train it". A few of them do but most go through one of my smaller session offerings usually three to six sessions in all. The goal of this type of training is to get the owners to a point where they are comfortable reinforcing the commands with the dog in an ongoing fashion so that the dog eventually does enough repetitions to become trained.
The vast majority of my clients have quite a bit of difficulty in translating what we do in the "lessons" into what to do in "real life". That statement became amazingly clear tonight as I was walking one of my client’s pups around my neighborhood while I’m keeping it. This little dog is working on "come" or "recall" as dog trainers call it. So to practice it in real life tonight I hooked the pup up to a long line, grabbed my three other dogs, and off we went around the neighborhood. Every time the pup would drift off with the other dogs I would give it a small tug on the long line and give her the "come" command. After we had done this for about a half an hour she was doing it every time without any tugs on the line. The sad thing is that these clients have had a long line for weeks and just haven’t had the time to work on this with her. I was thinking while walking around tonight that within the next four days that I have this dog we’re going to manage to do about 500-600 repetitions of recall and she’s going to be pretty good at it by the time she heads back home.
Without sounding preachy here, practice like you live and your dog training will be FAR more effective and will happen much faster than you ever imagined. Now if I could just get clients to understand how this all works, the dogs and people would be much happier.
Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com
512.231.8095
As a dog trainer I get asked all the time what type of dog someone should get. Most of the time, people are confused about the answer I give them. I start by asking them all kinds of questions about what type of lifestyle they have, how active they are, how tolerant of dog hair they might be, how big a dog they want… on and on and on until I sift through the huge number of breeds there are out there and come up with a "hit" on a couple of different breeds.
I went through this process with a client a few months ago. They hired me to meet with them, look at their home, and talk to them about the best breed for them. These folks hadn’t had a dog in years so for all intents and purposes they were first time dog owners. After we went though about an hour worth of questions and discussion, we narrowed things down to two of my favorite breeds, Welsh Springer Spaniels and Schnauzers.
After debating the merits of each breed this family chose to get a Welsh Springer pup and they’ve been as happy as can be. The reason I’m bringing this up in the blog is that so many people choose the wrong breed for their lifestyle. If more people would take the time to sit down and really look at how they live, we could match them up with a wonderful dog, even if it’s a rare breed that almost no one has heard of like a Welshie.
Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
512.231.8095
People have lots and lots of euphemisms for remote collars… shock collars, e-collars, and lots of others. The truth is that not all of them are used for shocking.
Two weeks ago I got a call from a client that has a wonderful pit bull that will do virtually every command as long as it can see you. The problem was that the dog was deaf and there was NO WAY to get it’s attention if she wasn’t looking right at you. This client needed a way to give the dogs commands while she wasn’t looking their way. The only way to do it was with a remote collar.
The tool we chose (Dogtra 200 ncp) does all of the standard things that a remote collar does but has one very important feature that most don’t. This collar could be triggered to vibrate "page" just like a cell phone. With the vibration we could train the dog that one buzz meant come, two buzzes meant sit… you get the idea. The beauty of this thing is that it will work at a distance of about a half a mile so even when they are in a dog park off leash they can get her to "listen" to their commands. Wonderful!
As we move through the training I’ll keep you posted about her, but the preliminaries have been fantastic. It’s just nice to see a dog with a disability like this get their world opened up a bit more.
Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com
512.231.8095