Old Dogs… New Tricks #2

Emma is a nearly 11 year old Bull Terrier who I met a few months ago after she had an incident with another dog while walking in her neighborhood on-leash with her person, Kaethin. Emma had always had aggression issues with other dogs, and in addition, was a bit territorial around her house when company would come over, and would not walk well on a leash. Kaethin was living in a new neighborhood, and Emma took a particular liking to the plums that would drop from the trees, and would pull Kaethin all the way across the street to get to them, often gorging herself, many times getting sick later.

All that being said, Emma is also a great, loving dog and fits my saying, "There are no bad dogs, just poor decision makers" to a "t". She had been Kaethin's loyal companion for many years and up until the latest dog incident, Kaethin had just taken the good with the bad, and learned to live with Emma's issues, but the last incident had been the straw that broke the camel's back, and Kaethin called me to see if there was anything that could be done to help Emma.

When I met Emma, she intimidated me a bit. Bull Terriers are extremely powerful dogs, and knowing her history of being territorial and protective in her home, I gave her a great deal of respect. At the same time, however, I explained to Kaethin that if she were willing to take my suggestions and do the work to help Emma overcome her aggression issues, they would be able to do many more things together which would be much more fun for both of them.

My opinion is that dog training happens equally on both ends of the leash, and after teaching Kaethin some new handling techniques, I suggested to her that she not take Emma into problematic situations, such as on walks when they might encounter other dogs, until she felt comfortable handling the situation calmly, which took a few weeks, but when I returned for our second session, we were able to walk Emma around the neighborhood past other dogs and even past her favorite plum buffet spot, without her paying any attention at all. I also noticed how much calmer Emma was when I came to the house, and Kaethin let me know that her aggression level when there were visitors had decreased completely.

We did our fourth session at Crissy Field which is a beautiful and popular spot here in San Francisco near the Golden Gate Bridge where there are always dozens of dogs walking with their people, and I'm happy to say that both Emma and Kaethin did great! Emma barely paid any attention to any of the dogs that were around, where before she would bark, and lunge aggressively at them making everyone uncomfortable, and Kaethin handled her with complete confidence. At the end of our session, Kaethin told me that she was looking forward to taking Emma there again, which is something that wouldn't have happened before since their routine usually consisted of avoiding situations where there might be other dogs around, and I'd like to think that this improves the quality of life for both of them.

Many people that have dogs with severe issues will often just adjust their lifestyle to accommodate them, simply managing their behavior, but I commend Kaethin for taking the steps to help Emma even though she's older, which will allow her to live out the rest of her (hopefully many) years doing many more things and going a lot more places!

Thanks to The Captain

A few posts back I talked about my experiences training new trainers in Los Angeles for The Pet Staff. We spent a great deal of time at Los Angeles Animal Services at their new North County Shelter where we worked with dogs in need of homes, working with them so they would be more adoptable. The person responsible for bringing us to the shelter and helping the new trainers gain this valuable experience is named Captain Louis Dedeaux, who has the title of Animal Behavioral Health & Safety Coordinator.

Captain Dedeaux has been training dogs for over 35 years, and I have to admit that our first day there, I was a bit nervous about handling dogs in front of him. This is because, I typically spend every day with my clients, who have absolutely no dog training experience whatsoever, unless they call me after working with an ineffective trainer. In any case, when they watch me handle their dogs, they are always amazed at what I can do, and how well I communicate with them, but it's been quite a while since I've worked with a "green" dog (which is a dog with very little, or no training) in front of a trainer with more experience than I had.

Louis later confided to me that he was watching me very closely at first as well. I came to find out that he often had trainers come to him to work with the shelter dogs. These trainers could easily "talk the talk" to him, telling him of all of their experience and success, but when the time came to "walk the walk" they often fell far short of being able to properly handle a difficult dog, and would often not be invited back, mostly for their own safety.

On Monday morning, after "talking the talk" with my class of new trainers for a week, I met them at the shelter and at Captain Dedeaux's suggestion, took a brindle Shepherd mix named Solomon out of the kennel and started to demonstrate some leash handling. Of course, Captain Dedeaux had me get one of the most squirrely and hyper dogs in the shelter, and Solomon proved to be quite a test for me, and I have to admit that I was a bit flustered for a few moments trying to get his focus in front of my class and Louis, but after a few moments I was able to have him sitting beside me calmly. By the end of that week, he was doing all his commands and would even heel off leash! (Solomon was one of several dogs we worked with that week that were able to find new homes!)

Over the course of the week, in between working with the new trainers, I would talk with Louis about different training techniques, and his view of the evolution of dog training over his 35 career. Captain Dedeaux had a beautiful German Shepherd named Hass who he took through Schutzhund training, and between watching him with his own dog, as well as the many dozens of dogs at the shelter, I came to respect his opinion very much, and while my clients complement me almost every day, the confidence Louis showed in me, as well as his compliments on my training and handling are just as, if not more, rewarding.

Thanks to Captain Dedeaux for all of your help, and your hard work and dedication to dogs. Many more dogs will be able to stay in their homes, and away from animal shelters and rescues, thanks in large part to your support and help during our time with you.

Old Dog… New Tricks

You always hear that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, in fact, the television show, Mythbusters dedicated part of an entire episode to this theory.

They should have filmed my first session with an 11 year old Daschund named Buddy that I just did yesterday. Buddy is an all around great dog who lives with a young couple that adopted him after his owner died. He had never had training and, while he is very loving and affectionate towards people, he was incredibly reactive towards other dogs. He would also bark and try to chase anything moving fast such as bicycles, joggers and even cars. He would sometimes get so worked up at the sight of another dog, he would hyperventilate, which is not good at his age.

Sometimes Buddy would be a bit too affectionate with guests, demanding attention, and would have to be banished to an upstairs room when company came over, so this was another area we worked on. Last, his leash behavior is terrible and he would pull so hard on the leash during his walks that he would often cough and gag.

In our first lesson, we taught Buddy to stay in his place, which will be very helpful when guests come over, but the best thing is that, with proper and efficient handling, we were able to quickly teach him to walk with a loose leash. His owners were so amazed that one of them immediately went to the garage and got out his bicycle to ride around Buddy while we walked him on his leash, which previously would send him into a frenzy, and Buddy just calmly stayed at his owners side watching his other person ride around in circles, ringing the bike's bell, as if to say, "What are you doing that for?"

Dog (and people) training is always more than one lesson, and there's some follow up to be done, but I think Buddy is already on his way to living out the rest of his years in a much calmer, and happier state.

Training the Trainers

I’ve been in Los Angeles for the past few weeks training a group of new dog trainers for The Pet Staff Los Angeles’ largest pet care company. The Pet Staff has been offering dog walking and pet sitting services throughout the greater Los Angeles Area since 2001, and I’ve known the owners, Brett Montana and Michael Landa, almost since their start. They have grown to nearly 200 pet sitters and have thousands of clients. They contacted me a few months ago about offering dog training services, after having many of their clients ask them for referrals to trainers. After a few meetings, they hired me as their head trainer, and I put together a great, reward-based dog and people training program for them based on my own personal program that I have been successfully employing for nearly 20 years.
The first step was to hire trainers, a LONG and exhausting process that started last July when we began to sift through nearly 1000 applicants. Brett and Mike, the owners of The Pet Staff have worked hard building their company’s reputation as the most professional and reliable in their industry and they were very selective during their interview process for dog trainers, which took several weeks and included several steps. They began with their initial application and had to go through a few in-person interviews, answer some essay-length emails, and do some reading on training theory, just to get to their final interview. Last month I flew to Los Angeles to meet the final candidates and after a few long days of interviews and a lot of deliberation, we chose the first 7 trainers.
In my nearly 20 year career, I’ve trained over 40 professional dog trainers, and over the years have developed an efficient program that not only focuses on teaching training theory and dog handling, but also the equally important component of instructing skills. We always begin in the classroom working on training theory as well as learning my training process, before moving outdoors to begin working on actual handling skills. All of the trainers we hired had years of experience with dogs, both professional and personally, but I had to teach them to train and handle dogs from a new client’s prospective, so much of what we worked on was unlearning habits, and learning some new communication techniques.
There’s always a hands-on component to my training classes, and this time The Pet Staff partnered with Captain Louis Dedeaux and Los Angeles Animal Services who offered us the use of their new North Central facility to work and several of the dogs that were waiting for adoption. That part of the training was an amazing and often heartbreaking experience which deserves its own blog entry, but I am happy to say that in addition to giving the trainer priceless experience training many different types of dogs, some with extreme behavior issues, we were able to help several dogs that may have been unadoptable before, find new homes.
I’m back in the San Francisco attending to my own business again, but am looking forward to my continued involvement with the new trainers I trained and The Pet Staff, and am thankful for the opportunity.