I have been to Oxfordshire today which is a change for me to be out of Leicestershire recently as Leicestershire is keeping me very busy. I took a phone call from a very confused dog owner who had had a visit from a "Dog Listener" who has spent three hours in their lounge telling them how to resolve the issues they were experiencing with their rescue Boxer/ Pointer dog. Whilst some of the suggestions had delivered an improvement, nothing had changed the dog's behaviour out on the walk. The talk had taken place with the dog in the room but with the trainer and the owners sat for the entire three hours, the dog was asleep in his bed so there was not even any observation of the interaction.
When the owners called me, they were skeptical and not surprisingly so. They told me their experiences to date and asked if I was different. They had seen and liked the testimonials on my web site and when I ran through how I work and when I asked questions about their interaction with their dog, they understood my approach is very different. They asked for time to think about it, it was only three weeks since the listener had been and they were not inclined to rush into anything, especially with the costs involved.
Two days later I took another call from them and they requested an appointment for a Home Visit which I completed today.
The dog is lovely and was calm at the door when I arrived and remained calm when I was in the house. The first part of the discussion revolved around their confusion and the mixed signals they were giving their dog and I helped dispel their confusion and also a few old wives tales along the way.
During this time, the dog decided he was not getting enough attention and started sitting in front of his owners and backing into them until he was almost under their legs! This was a sure fire way to make sure he got their attention. He was also prone to putting his face into theirs and barking just in case they had forgotten he was there. He had very cleverly worked out which behaviours gained the most attention and his owners had fallen for the whole performance.
When he started to be rewarded for not demanding attention and for being more relaxed, he started to settle down. Working with the dog in this way and explaining why our interaction shapes our dogs behaviour, the owners were amazed to find an hour and a half had already gone.
I wanted to make sure we covered as much as possible in the time allowed and this is usually determined by how quickly the dog can calm down and today we were working with a dog who just wanted to be calm so we were able to get out on a walk where his most explosive issues were.
But, before we went out on the walk, we had to see how the dog thought he should leave the house. When I do this, I am looking more at the state of mind of the dog rather than at the physical behaviour. Because the two are intrinsically linked, you get better behaviour from a calm dog yet you won't get better behaviour if the dog remains stressed and confused.
As they always put the dogs lead on in the garden and then went straight out through the gate, they had not given the dog to really show them how he was thinking so in order to do this, we brought the lead and collar into the lounge and made the starting point there. His behaviour amazed his owners as he started barking and biting the lead, things he had never had the time to do before. By giving the dog the time to show us how he thought he should behave, he gives us all the information needed for us to change the behaviour.
He soon learned his stress and determination to control the lead received no attention at all and if he went through the door on a tight lead, he was brought back to try again. When he went through the doorway on a slack lead, he was praised for it and very soon learned to do just that through the next three doorways. Excellent progress quickly achieved.
Out of the garden gate, he quickly wound up and became stressed at the anticipation of meeting cats, dogs, people, joggers and cyclists, all of the triggers for his bad behaviour. I quickly changed him from pulling to walking on a slack lead and explained to his owners how to spot his elevation of stress and at which points on the walk this happened. By stopping at these points, he learned to relax before proceeding and by also taking a wider berth into corners, the owners were able to see what was coming rather than walking blind into the corner which made them both nervous in case they came upon a jogger or bike.
On the way back, a jogger did come past and the owner just remained calm and moved away slightly and the dog just glanced at the jogger and did not react. This is also because there was no tightening of the lead or frantic calling "Leave It".
The owners are much happier, they feel they have really learned valuable information and are happy to continue what they have started. That is the difference between professionals and the rest.
This article was written by Steven Havers, a professional dog behaviour expert who specialises in training dogs not accepted by mainstream training clubs, centres or trainers. You can visit his website at http://www.haversspecialiseddogtraining.co.uk/ for more articles and training information.