The Dog Blog

I get this one all the time…..You Train Dogs for a living?? Are you serious?

What exactly does that mean? Well, I kind of thought today would be a good day to just run through what I did with clients all day long. It was an average day though a little short for most, this one was only eight hours long (just like the old office job). But, I tell all my clients and friends, it sure beats the heck out of working in a cube all day long.

So, here goes:

First Client:

A 16 week old labrador retriever puppy from very fine blood lines. Her parents were field trial champions so we can assume that she’s a pretty high strung and ACTIVE puppy.

In any case, her owners have done a remarkable job on working with her on the basic obedience stuff (sit, down, come…) but they were having a problem with the crate training. This little girl just didn’t want to go in the crate and certainly didn’t want to stay in the crate. She was also showing some signs of separation anxiety in the mix.

Off we go to the crate. We work for almost a solid hour on getting her to run in the crate, sit down, lay down in there and basically calm down in the crate. We used several little dog trainer tricks (Treats!!!!) to accomplish this, but we also showed her that we weren’t going to leave her in there forever. She started getting the idea and her owner called later in the afternoon to tell me that the pup had actually taken a nap in the crate which was a first.

The we started working on the Bed command where we teach her to stay on a dog bed until released. This worked like a charm in the lesson and it’s the tool of choice for initial and low level work on separation anxiety. Great command for all dogs to learn but particularly with this girl.

Off to the next client:

Second Client:

Young Corgi that was about 1 year old and showing pretty pronounced fear symptoms. This dog had been subjected to another trainer that tried to yank it into doing stuff with a choke collar. Not the way to go with a scared dog and I would love to get that choke collar on the previous trainer but that’s another story.

Anyway, we spent the better part of an hour building up trust with the pup so that the owners could even catch her. We started playing some very calm training games using treats to get her to come to us and allow us to reach out and touch her collar. She did great and her two young owners (age 9 and 10) were fantastically patient. By the end of the session we had her outside and she would come to us from several feet away. Another first for the owner.

Off to the next client:

Third client:

A one year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever with a counter surfing habit and the turbocharged desire to jump in the pool every time the back door to the house was opened.

First we worked on the “snatch the food” habit.

Interesting story here. The kids that own this dog go to a school that send home bread with them every Friday. So every Friday this dog knocks the five year old down when he comes through the door and snatches the bread. Not a very good habit in a dog if you ask me.

I appropriated the loaf of bread in question, which didn’t get snatched this week, and we started to work. I unceremoniously dropped the Challah bread on the floor ( I hope that didn’t horribly violate some sacred Jewish tradition) and started to teach this guy that he just wasn’t going to get that lovely Jewish delicacy ever again. It worked. By the end of the session I could hold the Challah up and our old bread snatching buddy would move away from it as I held it closer to him.

Next we went to the pool. This one is a hard one. Chesapeake Bay’s are bred, born, selected, and ordained to jump in any body of water that presents itself. Anything from a thimble to a water bowl to the backyard pool. I mean, we’re working with genetics here, I’m not the dog Whisperer or anything.

After a bit of modifying how this guy approached the pool we managed to get him to sit unattended at the edge of the pool and actually turn away from it as the owners walked up to him. I kind of took it as all in a days work but the owners said they wouldn’t have believed it if I told them it could happen.

Now for the hard part:

Just because I worked with all those people today and got their dogs to DO what they wanted, those dogs are still not trained. It’s going to take hundreds and hundreds of repetitions for all of these folks to get where they want to go with their dogs. It’s grunt hard work.

The beautiful thing about what I do though is I get to come in, show them how to accomplish it, and usually get their dog to a better place. They they get to do all the hard work!

Thats a day in my life.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works

Technorati Tags: dog training, Dog Trainer

I had a wonderful client today that lives just about three minutes from one of the largest dog training centers in the state of Texas. Yet, when he was looking for a trainer they chose me and patiently waited the month it took for me to actually get to him instead of walking a couple of blocks. I am amazingly grateful that people think so highly of what I do with Fidelio.

In any case, this couple had a wonderful and VERY STRONG Catahoula, also knows as a leopard dog. These guys are tough! Over in Louisiana and east Texas they use them to hunt wild boar if that gives you any idea of their tenacity. They called because they were having difficulty getting the dog to pay attention to them and were at their wits end about how to deal with him. Well, come to find out, he was a rescue dog and really just hadn’t ever been taught to try to “read” people and see what they wanted. We worked with the guy for about an hour and by the end of the session we had it staying on it’s dog bed, walking beside the owners, and coming to them reliably using a 20 foot long line. I think we made good progress today. With another lesson they should be well on their way to having a well behaved strong minded and confident dog.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works

Technorati Tags: dog training, Catahoula dog training

Dog trainers dread getting a client that has a dog with serious aggression issues. When we get to the client the family is in turmoil over the dog’s behavior, most times someone’s been injured or threatened by the dog, and it’s a horrible situation for all involved. Most dog trainers feel we need to do everything possible to help these clients, it’s more or less our professional credo as well as our job.

What clients really don’t understand is once a dog has started down the aggression path it’s impossible to “turn back the clock” and “cure” the dog from doing such things ever again. Now, don’t get me wrong, aggression is not as simple as that last line and it’s super difficult to diagnose what’s going on much less train for and modify the behavior. But, the best most of my clients can hope for is to MANAGE what’s happening using training and behavior modification tools.

Working with these dogs is hard under the best of circumstances. It’s difficult for me and it’s infinitely more difficult for the clients who aren’t as schooled in dog behavior. Where we run into problems is with how the dog interacts with the family in daily life and how they will be forced to modify how they live with the dog in order to work on the problem. Change doesn’t come easy to people, but in dealing with these dogs they’re forced to modify their lifestyle and expectations on a daily, hourly, and minute basis with the dog.

My most successfu clients have the mindset of, I love this dog and I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep him alive and keep everyone that comes into contact with him safe. Unless they maintain that as the core thought in their head when the dog is around there are going to be problems.

As a dog trainer, I struggle mightily trying to get my clients to comprehend the seriousness of what they are undertaking in these situations, but I’m not always successful. I always wonder what I can do to “help” them make the commitment to protecting their dog and family. Sometimes I just can’t get them to see the danger and even though I work with them on obedience and continue the training in hopes things will “click” for them I have little hope all will be well.

At the conference I attended this week someone asked Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer, what he did when clients didn’t do what he told them. How did he handle people who refused to practice the behavior modification program he gave them. His exact words were “I leave”. I sat agog for a few minutes as he continued on but his point made sense. There are over 1 million dogs put down every year in the U.S. If we waste time on clients that don’t want to help their dog then we’ve potentially taken away the life of one out there that has an owner that will do the work to save it. Now that is a Powerful thought indeed.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works

Technorati Tags: aggression, dog Aggression, dog training

One of the good things about going to a conference is all the vendors that are around.

Being a dog trainer, one of the exciting things in my life is finding a good leash. Is that a sad fact or what??

Anyway, I ran across this company that makes fantastic leashes in an artificial leather (Corinthian leather anyone…). In any case, these things felt great, were already broken in, which usually takes a leather one about a year or so, and were reasonably cheap. These things are called Biothane leashes from a company called Signature K9. They make a lot of stuff that the average dog owner wouldn’t be interested in but these leashes really got my attention and no cows had to give up any body parts to make them.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works

Back in my corporate days I had to go to conferences (trade shows) on a regular basis. Usually I was one of those sad people standing behind the counter in a booth tyring to get you to buy something.This week we Dog Trainers got to attend one of our annual trade shows/conferences and it was quite a change

First things first. It’s a good trade show when you can bring your dog! No doubt about it, having your bud there helps things tremendously and with roughly 100-150 dogs that I saw in the conference area we didn’t have one altercation. I guess that’s what training does for you.

Second.The speakers are a lot less stuffy. Cesar Millan was one of the headliners this week and his talk was along the lines of something we don’t see often in the dog training world. Cesar’s philosophy centers around the energy that people put out and how it affects their dogs. It’s a very valid approach and the most difficult thing for us trainers to get our clients to understand is how to “project” a different attitude to thier dog. Most times, if I can get the client to change their attitude we can change the behavior of the dogs. Easily said, but difficult to do.

Cesar’s other main point is that dogs don’t get enough exercise. Say it again brother! Dogs don’t get enough exercise! I can honestly tell you that if everyone walked thier dogs enough every day I would be looking for a job back in a cubicle somewhere. Most trainers estimate that fully 60% to 80% of the problems we see could be solved by getting the dogs out for a walk for at least an hour a day.Simple? Yes.

In any case the conference has been an enjoyable experience and it’s always fun to rub elbows with other dog trainers and “talk shop” even if the word “SIT” is used far to often.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works

After a VERY long day at the city council meeting I finally  managed to stand up and give my three minutes at 11:15 Thursday night. 

With the exception of Mayor Pro Tem Danny Thomas there were no dissenters on the panel.  I’m not sure what his reasoning was as he didn’t care to go into specifics, just that "he didn’t think it was a good idea".

In any case, establishments that wish to allow dogs on their patio can now do so without threat of fine or infraction.

So, grab your dog and head down to Opal Devines on sixth street to munch some of their amazing fries with your best four legged friend!

Thanks to all of you that wrote and called, we couldn’t have done it without you.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com