My Best Friends Chilling in their Backyard

There are fewer joys in life greater than a good walk; add a well behaved dog to that equation and in my opinion you have pure perfection!  I have the great honor of training and walking 5 Weimaraners twice a week.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are full of exhilaration and exercise, I tell my friends I am Weimar-running or doing Weimar-obics.  Although it is a job for me (thank goodness for wonderful clients who rescue dogs) it is an opportunity for me to get outside, enjoy the weather and beat some of my stress.

Last Tuesday, I headed out for my normal routine.  First I work with Zach, he is a four year old rescue, and in his former life (if you can call it that) he was tied to a tree.  This lack of socialization and the stimulation of watching other dogs and kids coming and going has caused Zach to be quite dog aggressive and easily over stimulated.

However, I am happy to report after a few years of training and desensitization and under the watchful eye of a veterinary behaviorist we have seen a remarkable improvement.  In the respect of safety, I walk Zach alone.  I also make sure he is always on a gentle leader ® and a martingale collar, this gives me ultimate control in case of an off leash dog emergency.

Many dogs in the South are “outside” dogs and have never seen the inside of a house, and often run in packs.  Although we were rushed by two small dogs, Zach has learned to trust in me and give up ultimate authority to me, and I was able to keep them and him at a safe distance while providing him with mental entertainment.

After Zach, the alpha dog, gets his walk, it is time to walk the other four boys.  Because we have been working and training together for so long, I am able to walk the other three or four dogs together.  I have even trained for a marathon with all of them running by my side in the heel position.

It takes miraculous skill and trust to run with 3 or 4 dogs that are over 100 pounds apiece.  Ultimately I am able to walk or run all of them with four leashed draped over one finger.  They too have learned to listen to respect, and deduce my every movement.  We all really enjoy the time we spend together.

On this particular day, there was a man and his dog in the neighborhood as I rounded the corner with the boys.  His dog was distracted and not use to walking around other dogs, he kept turning around, barking and growling and pulling on his leash.

My boys, were perfect, although stimulated to see another dog, they were fantastic about staying in heel position and paying attention to my every move.  I perceive every occasion like this as a training opportunity, so we fell back about 50 feet and worked on our training.

I varied my pace, changed my direction, made a few circles and encouraged my dogs to pay attention to me with praise and petting.

Unfortunately, the guy in front of me quickly began to lose patience with his dog, and finally kicked his dog in the ribcage and jerked on his leash.  For a moment, his dog did pay attention, but it was simply because he was terrified he would be met by the same anger.

I could see his eyes wildly dashing back and forth toward the street and then back to his owner.  It was clear his dog didn’t know why he had been the recipient of such rage.  In his mind, what he was doing was normal, he was entertaining himself and he was also challenging any sense of danger from a pack of unknown dogs.

I was distraught and saddened that someone would so blatantly abuse his dog however I felt it was in the best interest of the dog to fall back and change directions to alleviate the distraction we were causing.

I Tried to See the Situation from all Points of View

• To me this was a training opportunity, a chance to strengthen and polish my dog’s obedience skills.
• To my dogs it was an opportunity to challenge their minds and add excitement to our walk.  The addition of a new dog meant paying more attention to me, changing directions, doing circles and changing paces.  There was no time to pay attention to what the other dog was doing.
• To the other dog, who was bored with a slow walk, we provided excitement and stimulation.
• To the owner, he let himself get irritated.  He probably didn’t regularly work obedience with his dog at home and he became frustrated when his dog would not listen to him.

It is fairly simple to get your dog to have good leash manners if you understand walking from his perspective.  Walking in one direction at a slow pace is boring for dogs and boredom leads to looking for ways to entertain themselves.

When dogs are forced to entertain themselves, whether at home or on a walk, they often choose naughty or what we presume as naughty behavior.  They bark, they growl, they lunge, they lead with their noses and sniff, they pull; these things provide mental stimulation for them.

The Key to Enjoying Your Walk Together

1. You must provide entertainment for your dog’s mind.
2. Vary your pace!  Dogs like to walk quickly and walking at a quick pace gives less opportunity for sniffing and pulling.
3. Changing your direction, throwing in turns and circles in the middle of the street also teaches your dog that he needs to be paying attention to your every move.  If he has to speculate your movement and direction, he has less time to pay attention to distractions and chose those naughty behaviors plus its FUN for you both and it gives you a chance to polish your obedience.

You MUST provide your dog with mental stimulation.  The Weimaraners I walk not only trust me that they will be kept safe because I am in control, they also enjoy the fact that they never know how fast or slow, which direction I might turn, if I may just turn around…they just don’t know WHAT I will do so they didn’t have time to care what that other dog was doing and most importantly they were getting praised and petted each time they made a correct choice.

Practice makes perfect!  The more you work with your dog the more you will reap the benefits of your hard work and the more you can actually enjoy your time together.  I truly believe there is almost nothing better than a good walk with a well behaved dog!  A good walk is hard to beat!

Sebastian: where all the Weimaraner Rescuing Started

A Good Walk is Hard to Beat is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

courtesy of www.dogstardaily.com

You are probably aware of how important it is to socialize your puppy.  Having good socialization skills will help your dog respond with acceptable and healthy behaviors when faced with situations that may be disturbing or disrupting to their normal routines.

Siblings and Roommates Don’t Count

posted by Cindy Bruckart, February 24th, 2010, dogstardaily.com

I’m often asking dog owners about their dog’s socialization history.  Even if the dog owner tells me that their dog is “good with other dogs”, I have to ask more questions.  Time and again, the dogs that their dog is good with include the siblings he played with at the breeder’s home, the dog he lives with and a relative’s dog.  That’s it.

When I tell them that siblings and roommates don’t count, we get to the truth of the matter.  The dog may be nearly a year old and have only met one or two other dogs, besides siblings and roommates.  Now, I know that dog owners reading this might not see this as a big problem, as long as the dog was good with those dogs, we should be able to assume he’d be good with others, right?  Wrong.

Socialization is a continuing process, not a single event.  We can’t say that a human is well socialized if the only people he sees until his teen years are his siblings and his parents.  Imagine a child who had only played with his siblings for 14 years being dropped off at middle school!  No matter how well he may have played with siblings, I think we’d expect him to be lacking severely in social skills.  It’s certainly unfair to expect dogs, with their shorter “childhoods”, to become masters of social grace after being exposed to only two or three of their species.

Read the rest of Cindy’s article.

Socialization is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

Do you have a passion for dogs?  If you’ve ever considered a career working with animals, being a dog walker or a pet sitter might be right for you.  If you think you have what it takes, read on.

Posted by Wishbone and Amber on Tuesday, February 9, 2010

healthypets-happyowners.blogspot.com

If have big heart for the pets, you are reliable, honest and hard working, and are interested in a career that is both fun and challenging, you’ll want to join the wonderful world of professional pet sitting and dog walking. That way the pets can do all the hoop jumping for you (which will really only be when you’re sitting or walking circus pets).

There are two ways to get your foot in the proverbial door of this job. First of all, you can join an already established agency or train under someone who has set up a solid business and needs to hand jobs over to someone else. Or open door number two and start your own pet sitting company. Of course, both options have their ups and downs. Working for someone else will mean a boss, and perhaps less money than if you were working for yourself, but you’re also not doing the difficult behind-the-scenes tasks, such as getting clients, liaising with clients and dealing with problems as they arise so better get ready and always be prepared. Just make sure you are reliable when it counts.

If you do decide to work for yourself, you need to build a reputation. Bully all your friends into using your services and get their friends to hire you, too. Post ads on veterinary bulletin boards, Craigslist, and pass out fliers around town. It may take awhile to see the fruits of your labor, but usually the larger the effort, the larger the payout.

Read the rest of the article.

Is this profession for you? is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

This is a great video of Aidan Bindoff from PositivePetzine.com teaching Tess a 13mo old GSD how to walk on a loose leash.  Through much positive reinforcement Aidan is able to show Tess that pulling and tugging on the leash is not the best way to get what you want.  Read what Aidan has to say on this here.

You can also check out our loose leash training information.

Loose Leash Training is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

Most dog owners try to train their dog the way most of us were trained by our parents when we do something bad.  We yell, scold or swat our dogs for doing what we think is an inappropriate behavior.

While this is sometimes an effective training technique, you should be aware of what’s REALLY happening when you use negative punishment as a training technique for dog’s who are aggressive towards others on their leash.

What most pet owners aren’t aware of is that when you use punishment you automatically program the brain to ALSO feel a negative emotion.  So while you may be able to train a dog to not growl at another dog by beating him, you may have enhanced the negative emotions your dog has for the other dog approaching… in effect, creating dog aggression where it normally shouldn’t exist.

What’s really happening when you punish a dog for acting aggressively while on his leash is to SUPPRESS his outward display of emotions.  Or said another way, you eliminate the WARNING signs your dog gives off when he gets upset.  This increases the likelihood of so called, Random biting attacks where the person being bit couldn’t tell the dog was upset until it was too late.

This is why I’m a HUGE advocate of what I call Emotion Training, where you reprogram your dog how to feel POSITIVE emotions instead of negative ones.

If you’re interested in learning more about Emotion Training and how it can be used to re-program your dog’s aggression issues towards others in his environment, read my free report titled, Reprogramming the K9 Mind.

Most dog owners don’t even realize it’s possible, or how easy it is to train.  And to those skeptics who don’t think you can train a dog’s emotional reactions towards things in his environment I like to share a story from a great dog training book called “Control Unleashed” by Leslie McDevitt.

In her book, Leslie tells a story about how she trained her dog to stop chasing squirrels by turning the act of her dog seeing a squirrel into a cue to turn around and look at her… instead of chasing the squirrel!

Most people would think this is impossible, but she outlines a very common sense approach for how she trained this behavior that is worth picking up a copy of the book to learn.

This training philosophy works off of environmental cues that you can train your dog to recognize.  In cases where your dog get’s aggressive on his leash, think about what would happen if you changed the rules on your dog…

What if instead of your dog feeling the urge to get protective of you when on a leash, you started giving him a piece of cheese every time he saw another dog from a distance?

You may not notice a change the first or second time you gave your dog some cheese, but if you consistently tossed your dog a piece of cheese EVERY time he saw another dog for the next month, most dogs start to realize seeing other dogs can be a good thing.  Many dogs will even start to get excited about seeing other dogs because they realize it means a piece of food is coming their way.

Of course there are a hundred different ways to apply this method of Emotion Training dog fixing your dog’s aggression while on a leash, and if you’re interested in learning more techniques and strategies for fixing your dog’s leash problems make sure you read my report, Reprogramming the K9 Mind.

Fixing Dog Aggression On Leash is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog

This one was done with Sylvia Tyree, who knocked it out of the park with her simple solutions for how to use halters (a specific kind you’ll need to listen for in the interview) to cure your dog’s bad habit of pulling on that leash.  Get more leash training information from our site.

And the greatest part is that the halter only has to be used temporarily.

It was a GREAT call, and I’m excited to do more calls with Sylvia in the future

Here’s the recording:

No More Pulling On The Leash! is a post from: Dog Obedience Training Blog