everything about your dogs

Showing posts with label dog trainer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog trainer. Show all posts

We tried that. It didn't work.

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 Nelson is a 4 years old Goldendoodle. He runs off when the door opens. He doesn't come back when he's called. He often doesn't respond when asked to do things.  Does Nelson sound like a dog you know?

Nelson's case is a common call I get as a professional dog trainer.  He's been practicing unwanted behaviors his whole life.  The owner is at wits end and has decided to find a professional to help.  Great!  I love these cases because once they start training the dog often responds quickly and does very well.  

However, the downside to these cases is that the owner is at their wit's end and they are tired.  
I get that. It's frustrating to have a dog that seems to be a pain to live with.  Sometimes a spouse/partner is tired of the dog and it is a source of tension in the relationship.  This causes even more stress. I do empathize.

So by the time I get the call the owner is really ready for results.  What they don't often grasp is the fact that the dog has had a long time, often months or years, to practice poor behaviors.  This is called the Matching Law.  So if your dog has barked at every stranger that walks in your door for 6 months it will take some time of the dog not barking at strangers that walk in the door before the behavior is extinguished . . . and that's not all of it . . . you have to find a desired behavior that receives [positive] reinforcement and rewards to replace the barking behavior.  
With all this said, my point: there is no quick fix.

This is why training your dog several times a week, consistently, is important.  It is also important to implement your trainer's advice as they lay it out for you.  Once a week training only when your trainer is there or if you are in a class isn't going to get you the desired results you had in mind.

This is also when I hear a lot of "Oh we tried that, it didn't work", or "We tried Suzie Q Trainer and she didn't help us."  While this can be true sometimes, most of the time this means the owner didn't see immediate results, didn't practice or carry out training as they should have, or all of the above.  

I tell all my clients -- you don't need hours a day to work with your dog, you can achieve success with 5-10 minute training sessions daily or every few days, a couple times a day. That's it.  I also explain how owners can incorporate training into daily life.  If you are washing the dishes at the sink you can easily practice your dog's "get on your mat" cue, or durations [staying for longer periods of time], or  stay-out-of-the-kitchen-and-wait-on-your-bed-in-the-living-room-until-I-tell-you  -- the possibilities are vast.

Anyone can train their dog.  A trainer is highly recommended for much needed guidance.  Just plan accordingly and keep your expectations realistic for your dog and your trainer.  

If you try something and it "doesn't work" ask your trainer.  I like to tell people nowadays to video themselves working on what they are struggling with and let me view it to offer help.  This can be a great way for you to watch yourself and catch your own mistakes (secret revealed: I find mistakes in my videos of myself all the time!) or your trainer to catch something you didn't see.  

So don't be discouraged. Find a trainer that you mesh with, you believe in what they are teaching, how they are teaching it and helping you as you hoped they would.  

In the Dallas/Ft Worth, Texas metroplex? Look me up! 
Stacy Greer

Meet Bugsy!

Meet Bugsy!

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Working with horses has taught me how to listen and communicate with animals in a very quiet, positive way. My trainer growing up used 'traditional methods' of 'breaking' horses, but I always felt that there was another way. Even though my trainer's horses were extremely good safe horses, I knew that there were other methods that were less harsh. I read everything I could about horses and found Monty Robert's natural horsemanship style of training. It involves the round pen and intuition of horse body language. Later on I discovered clicker training and positive reinforcement techniques through dog training that could be modified for horse training. Now my training style includes natural horsemanship principles of Roberts and Parelli, as well as clicker training. 
  About three months ago, one of my dog training clients told me that she has horses and of course I had to ask if I could go riding with her. I had been dying to go riding because I grew up training horses and my life just isn't the same without horses in it. Not only did my client say that I could go ride with her, she said that I could have one of her horses! I couldn't even believe it at first! Then she informed me that her horse Bugsy, aka Naughty All Night, was psycho and had recently bucked off another trainer five times. She had also panicked on the trail and busted open her foreleg and had also thrown herself into the wall of a round pen. Everyone on the ranch thought that she was crazy. When I told my client that I would take her, everyone on the ranch thought that I was crazy too. Well, two crazies make a right and Bugsy and I are doing so well together!
 I introduced her to clicker training and lots of round pen work, and it's given her a way to communicate with me. She has learned to target a ball on a stick, which was the first step to our clicker training. Now she can target anything that spooks her and once she touches something with her nose and it doesn't bite her back she gets over it much faster. She was also pretty head shy and now she has learned to place her head in my hand. Clicker training has also made her so much better with her feet and now she is picking her feet up easily for the farrier. Before she was kicking the farrier and he had to dope her to get near her. After a couple of weeks with lots of positive reinforcement ground work, I climbed up on her and we've been riding together ever since. She only needed someone to gently explain to her what was asked of her. She's such a sweet and willing horse that she would get extremely agitated and scared when a human would get frustrated with her and push her limits. Slow and steady wins the race and we are slowly pulling ahead. We are working together and communicating with each other in a way that I didn't even know was possible. It's so exciting to see Bugsy become such a wonderful horse and friend! She makes me laugh everyday because she's such a goofy girl and I can never have a bad day when I'm around her. However, she probably will be 'Naughty All Night' the rest of her life because I think she's night blind, which is a common trait in Appaloosas. Oh well, she was free! : )