The Dog Blog

Had a strange meeting with a client today. Their dog who is now over a year old and who I trained initially has developed a habit that his family thinks is unsettling.

It seems that the pup spends most of the day with the mom of the house, and while she is a great lady and a very dedicated dog trainer she is a bit of a perfectionist. Well, when the dad of the house comes home the pup goes nuts and wants to spend all the time with him. This, as you can imagine with a bit of a perfect mother, was unsettling.

Their question to me was “how do we make the dog like me [the husband] less and like her [the mom] more??” Simple actually. As with many things in life, familiarity breeds contempt. I told them to switch roles for a few days and let the dad do the walking, training, grooming, feeding… and let the mom do the come home and play thing. It should be an interesting experiment.

Now, while nothing in dog training is absolutely certain, I’ll bet a heavy wager that by the end of the week the pup will be following the mom around going “play with me, play with me, play with me” at every opportunity.

Hopefully, problem/issue solved

Many days I spend my time running between clients in the car and saying “sit”, ‘Down’, ‘come’ over and over…. all day. It’s not a bad way to spend a day, in the company of dogs and their people devoted to them, but it’s nice to once and a while get to work with a dog that will actually a have a job that it has to do. Particularly, an important job. Yesterday was one of those days.

Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist at Ft. Hood military base here in Texas is going to be taking his dog Lady to work with him. Dr. Gordon works with returning soldiers with PTSD and he’s found that having a dog in the room helps everyone deal with the difficult conversations and situations. That’s good for the people for sure, but that’s only half the story.

Lady, the dog, was found abandoned in a ditched car in the parking lot of the local hospital. No one knows how long she was locked in the car or anything at all about her history. All we do know is that Dr. Gordon rescued her and has been training with her since she landed with him. It’s a good match, probably the best match I’ve seen in a while.

So, long story short, Lady passed her Canine Good Citizen test yesterday and is now cleared by the Ft. Hood staff to accompany Dr. Gordon to the hospital and on all of his rounds with clients anywhere on the base. A true working dog!

Needless to say, I was pretty proud of both of them and I’m not shy to say that I had a tear in my eye when they walked away with their CGC certificate to head straight back to Ft. Hood to a group session with the soldiers.

Steve,

The best compliment I can give you is how many people meet Gunther and say (right away): “Oh, I can tell this is a Fidelio Dog….”

Marty J. S.

When a dog trainer (like me) starts looking for a puppy, I tend to start looking for English Cocker puppies.

This is a lovely ECS at 4 weeks old. Oh my.

Sometimes we dog trainers use this saying amongst ourselves to describe a predicament a certain client is in. We’ll say “It’s too much dog for him/her” Which really means that the dog is the equivalent of giving your 87 year old grandmother a Ferrari to drive to the market on Thursdays.

Often times this “too much dog situation” involves much care and attention from the trainer and much destroyed furniture, toys, house siding…on the part of the owner.

One of my most recent favorite Near “too much dog” stories involves this dog Ranger. Ranger came from a very high end breeding program that breeds for serious working dogs. He is a VERY high quality dog with excellent intelligence, maybe to much. Ranger’s owner is a previous client of mine and a very fine lady. She’s had Shepherds before so she knew what to expect. Well, she almost knew what to expect. This pup needed TONS of exercise both mental and physical and he was a bear to keep up with. So, while I can say he’s a handful and got near “to much dog”, his owner stepped up and managed to keep him at the ” all the dog I can handle” level.

So, as a tribute to this owner and Ranger, I took some photos of him today to show what a great dog he’s become. Kudos to Patti and Ranger for getting over the hump and moving on out into the world of fantastic companionship.

Well, I never would consider myself a person to use the blog to plug products or places but this one is a MUST and it is far far overdue. The folks at Just For Pets on Far West have been a great helper to my clients for the last couple of years. Any time a client has food questions or any other question about what should ‘go into a dog’ I send them to talk to Jim. Those folks have forgotten more about dog food than I will ever know.

So, if you need treats, food, toys, beds…… go see them. And tell them Steve sent you.

Just For Pets
3742 Far West Blvd
Suite 104
Austin, TX
(512) 342-2220

Sometimes I get to work with dogs for a longer period of time and I get to know them well. It’s a curse for dog trainers that some of our favorite dogs are not our own, but those of our clients. Zachary is just such a dog.

Zachary and I have been working together for about three months now. He’s a wonderful dog and though he still has his ‘puppy’ moments he is attentive, sweet, and a very gentle soul of a dog. In short I wish that I could clone him and have a copy for myself.

Sometimes we professional trainers become a bit jaded from working with with so many dogs throughout the year, but just often enough we get a Zachary who comes along and reminds us of exactly what the true definition of ‘a good dog’ actually is.

As the end of Zachary’s training time with me nears, I’m starting to feel a sense of loss. I’m going to miss working with you Zachary, you’re a Very Good Dog.

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:Elinor Ln,West Harwich,United States

Just read this in the NY Times. It answers questions I get every day about running with your dog. Have fun and enjoy.

http://nyti.ms/aF6hbo

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:Elinor Ln,West Harwich,United States

I had an interesting client last week. These people had a very fine lab that I had worked with before for various issues and have always been quite pleased with it.

The issue was that in the past this pup had ‘eaten’ a couple of the family birds, and had been corrected (as it should have been) to the point that it was now scared of any bird in the house. She was fine with birds outside but in the house, not so much. In any case a new Solomon Island Eclectus arrived in the home two weeks ago and I was called to work on the fear issues.

When working on something like this the basic starting point is plain old behavior modification and desensitization works. Getting the dog to ‘do it’s commands’ when it gets nervous is a fabulous way to start.

So, after about 5 days of training here is the note from the owners:

“We all seem to be getting along! ”

Mission accomplished for the dog trainer.

My wife always says that my job as a dog trainer places me somewhere between the psychologist and the pool boy. The difference is not as great as one would think.

Today, however, I am the pool boy. See the photo below. My entry point.

Location:Marshall Ln,Austin,United States

Yikes. One of my trainers just saw a dog die of heatstroke while walking around town lake. Please be careful with your pups when it’s this hot and humid outside. Jog with them at night, not at noon.

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:Lady Bird Lake Trail,Austin,United States

Great lesson with two kids 8 and 9 years old. They handled their two gigantic ridgeback puppies amazingly well. I see a bright future in dogtraining for Lucy and James.

And, even more amazingly, they asked if they could work with the dogs ‘lots’ during the day. Guess that gets rid of the second week of summer boredom.

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:Redbud Trail,Austin,United States

So far the pup has met every TSA employee within 150 feet of him at love field. Seems like lab pups are very popular with TSA people.

After his initial round if barking in th check in line (dogs can’t use early check in apparently) he’s been pretty quiet.

Here he is waiting for the plane.

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:Dallas,United States

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve flown commercial. Over the past few years every time I’ve travelled to get a puppy I’ve had the luxury of flying on my client’s private plane.

What I’m wondering is how is that new pup goin to do today on a full Southwest flight home? I’m prepared for all of the smell and fluid issues but I hope the little guy doesn’t bark the whole way home.

The food news is that even on the way out everyone whe sees the empty carrier wants to ‘see the puppy’ so we’ll be busy greeting new people the whole way home.

So all in all I guess the socialization aspect of flying comercial outweighs the ease of flying home in the family Gulfstream.

On to to puppy land!

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:On the plane

Flying out this morning to pick a puppy for a client. The TSA lady was intrieguied by all the puppy testing gear in my bag.

Poo bags
Towels
Treats
Rope
Tinfoil
Bouncy toys
Chewy toys
Ziplock bags
Baby wipes

And most of all, no laptop. They thought that lack of a laptop was weird.

– Post From My iPhone. Dog training on the go.

Location:Aldford Dr,Austin,United States