Jumping, fetching and running about.

I filmed our training session on the paddock yesterday – just for fun and with no intention to blog about it, but also, as I have learned from filming training sessions in the past, it’s a great way to see why a dog won’t do this or that or appears confused by what is being asked.  Being able to watch yourself train with your dog is a real eye-opener, and I can guarantee that 100% of training mistakes are due to handler error – this handler included.  The point is, that once you’ve got over the embarrassment of seeing yourself on film (I still have a problem with this, I’ll never be a TV celebrity ‘dog expert’) you can start to learn from these errors, rectify where you are going wrong, and get it right.  Believe me, this can truly be revolutionary, and if you’ve not had the benefit of a dog professional’s analytical eye upon you, learning to be your own critic is essential to your role and progress as an owner/handler.

These days I have learned to recognise immediately where I go wrong and I take that extra couple of seconds thinking time to avoid mistakes.  I didn’t make any glaring training mistakes yesterday, but I did walk into a jump (ouch) and a while later, tripped over Beau who was minding his own business truffling for treats in the grass.  To save myself unnecessary embarrassment I’ve left these ‘You’ve Been Framed’ moments on the cutting room floor, and the video is made up of the ‘best bits’ of our session – not the perfect bits, I’m a pet dog trainer, I don’t train to competition standard in any discipline, I simply want to see happy, responsive dogs enjoying what they are doing.  So this 5-minute film is a mix of agility, obedience and retrieving, and when I watched it back this morning it struck me just how much my dogs have had to learn in order to achieve all this – and that’s the reason for this article, to let you know that there are no short-cuts, just lots of learning from mistakes, and that it takes time, patience, knowledge and effort to make things look easy.  So I hope that you enjoy watching our little session, and that the explanations for each clip provide some insight into how we did it:

Take the Canine Mind Temperament Test

Before I work with a dog, I spend a couple of hours on the phone talking to the dog’s owner and noting down its case history.  I start by asking the owner for some very basic and standard information – contact details, vet details, dog’s medical history and the like – and then we spend some time discussing the main behaviour problem.  I then ask the owner another series of questions, and as we start to go through them I often detect an air of ‘why is she asking me this?’ from the other end of the phone-line.  At that point I explain that although the questions may not seem to bear any relevance to the problem itself, the answers will enable me to gain an insight into the dog’s general temperament.

Temperament is an important factor in working out how best to resolve a behaviour issue.  Temperament determines how an individual dog responds to the world, and so provides me with a predictable foundation on which to base a dog’s behaviour therapy and training plan.

Take the Canine Mind Temperament Test!  Which set of the following temperament traits best describes your dog?

Fighting talk

Fighting between dogs who share the same household isn’t a behaviour problem that I help dog owners with on a daily basis, but it is an issue that I receive many calls about that do not result in bookings for 1-2-1 behaviour consultations.  I suspect that this is because when I tell people how much effort may be involved in resolving the problem, they have second thoughts.  More often than not, the response is "we’ll think about it" – and then I never hear from them again. 

I’m not sure what people expect me to tell them when they call – maybe that I have a magic wand that I can wave about and make the problem go away, or that I can show them one simple technique to stop the aggression and prevent it from ever coming back.  The truth is that resident dog-dog aggression is often a serious and complex behaviour issue, which requires a dedicated and concerted effort from owners in order to resolve the problem, often requiring changes to be made to the home environment, daily routines and personal habits.  I think that the route to resolution is just too much work for some people to want to take on.

Barking mad

I was pondering the other day how when I take a call from a potential client about a problem they are having with their dog, they often describe the dog’s behaviour in a particular way. 

They tell me about the problem, and then go on to say, “but she’s SUCH a good girl the rest of the time … and she NEVER barks.”

So if a dog never barks, this is considered to be ‘good behaviour’, but replace ‘dog’ with ‘child’ and ‘barks’ with ‘speaks’, and suddenly we have a major communication problem on our hands.  Time to call in the doctors, medical experts, psychology specialists and do tests to find out why there is no speaking.  We celebrate our children’s first vocal utterings, melt the first time that they say ‘mummy’, smile when we listen to them playing and shouting and laughing with their friends, but when a dog barks, we get annoyed and want them to shut up or better still, never bark at all – except of course when we want them to warn us that someone is trying to burgle the house.
 

Birthday Beau

Usually with rescue dogs it's complete guesswork as to how old they might be.  'Gotcha Days' replace birthdays to mark the dog's adoption date, and how long dog and owner have been together. 

We rehomed Beau privately from a local family who had had him since a pup so his birthday and age was known, and although he does have a 'Gotcha Day' (29th September 2009), I choose to mark his birthday instead.  And by chance, me and Tilly did meet him as a pup when co-hosting a puppy party at our local vets ~ not that I suppose he remembers this!

So Happy 3rd Birthday beautiful Beau ... enjoy your cake!