Embarrassed by your fat dog?

The Dog Snobs inspired me with their post today.  I needed to add to it from the perspective of a veterinary receptionist.

Almost every day it happens.  An overweight dog, drags, or is dragged into the clinic by his owner.  The first thing we ask the owner to do is get the dog on the scale for a weight.  This is the cue for said owner to blush and say they hope "Mugsy" has lost weight.  They have been cutting back on his food after all, or they have switched old Mugs to XXX brand diet dog food, although he doesn't like it very much and they have to add to it to get him to eat.

Sure enough Mr Mugs has gained weight, or at least not lost weight, since the last time he was in to visit us.  And the owner looks at her dog and says something like, "Oh Mugsy, you need to stop eating so much".  WHAT?! Say What?!  Does Mugs feed himself?  Does he plan his own meals? Does he open the refrigerator and help himself?  Does he go shopping?  How is this the dogs fault???

Please people, at least take responsibility for what you are doing to your pet.  I know you love them and you show that love by feeding them and falling for their sad puppy dog eyes. 

 But you are killing them with kindness.  You are shortening their lifespans and you are often creating diseases in your pets (such as diabetes) that are going to need lifetime treatment and end up costing you much more money in veterinary costs.  Please don't complain to me about these costs.

Becoming a Dog Trainer - The Distraction Class

Wow, this dog training thing is really requiring me to use my brain.  My kingdom for a puppy class to teach.  Let me mould them from the beginning instead of trying to fix the problem dogs.  Alas, that doesn't seem to be my calling.

My current role is teaching what is titled "Distraction Class".  In reality it is more of a reactive dog class. Thankfully there are only two dogs in the class.  One on one the dogs are lovely.  Both easy to work with and both wanting to learn.  But putting them in the same hall together changes things completely.

So I am rereading Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt.   I am looking for exercises I can use to allow these two dogs to remain calm and work together in the class.  Some mat work and some "Look at that" to start with.

This is the second week I have been teaching this class and the second week it has been indoors.  During the summer it was held outside in a big field which allowed for lots of distance between the dogs.

Week 1 I brought a few obstacles into the building and had the dogs navigate these in hopes that the effort of concentrating on the obstacles would distract them from each other.  And it seems to have been successful.  They were both able to work obstacles on their own side of the room simultaneously.

Week 2 I decided to try a different approach.  No obstacles, nothing for the dogs to focus on but each other.  That wasn't really my intent, but that is what happened.  The class didn't go as well as I hoped and here I am trying to figure out the best next step for these dogs.  We did end the class on a good note and I hope to start it next week the same way.

Wow, is this ever a huge learning curve.  But I have no doubt it is helping me to be a better trainer.

On the plus side, I have been practicing with my own dogs and concentrating on more obedience with them in the last few weeks and I can see it positively affecting both my young dogs.

Happy training everyone.

Becoming a Dog Trainer - Part 1

Some of you may find this title strange.  I have been in the dog world and training dogs for over 30 years.  I have put titles on my dogs in agility, obedience, flyball, disc and conformation.  I was a member of the Superdogs team for 11 years.  So what is this about "becoming" a dog trainer.  Am I not already there?  I must say that until today I certainly thought so.  So what changed?

Officially it all started last Saturday when I signed on to become a dog trainer with Positive Changes Dog Training in Ottawa Ontario.  We did the paperwork and I signed an employment agreement and we discussed a few details on how the company operates.  All done in the comfort of one of the Kanata Starbucks.

Today this venture started in ernest.  Today was spent at the training centre (currently the home of the company owner) working a couple of the board and train dogs.  And what I learned today is that raising a dog from puppyhood and moulding it and shaping it and doing work with it every day is entirely different from training an adult dog that has no knowledge of training or learning.

I was working with a totally unfocused, unmotivated hound mix (I'll call him Snoopy to protect his identity) who was more interested in everything else in the yard and who wasn't overly interested in the food I had to offer.  I worked Snoopy twice for about 10 minutes each time.  A good part of the first session was spent just trying to get to know him and what might motivate him.  A bit of experimenting with what works for my dogs, none of which worked with this guy.  Snoopy wanted to smell the grass, sniff the air, try to get to the other dogs in the yard and basically do everything in his power to distance himself from me.  He wouldn't even sit on command (something he has already been trained).

I had to rethink everything I would normally do with my own dogs.  After some experimentation we found a couple of things we could agree on and we started working his "couche" (down) command.  (How did the only anglophone there end up training the french dog?)

The second session was much more successful and we actually got the beginning of an independent down.  Snoopy was much more focussed on me and things began to click.  I went from thinking in the first session that this dog was a hopeless case to seeing the potential the second time I worked him.  I went from thinking in the first session that maybe I wasn't cut out for this job to thinking in the second session, "hey, I can do this".

But what I realized is that training the average pet dog is much different from training my own dogs.  And it is very different from teaching dogs and people agility and flyball.  Motivation and background training/experiences are so different.  And trying to train these pet dogs the way I train my own dogs at home just is not going to work.  I am going to have to use everything I know about dog training and be willing to experiment with different methods and tools.

This is going to be a fun adventure.  And of course next we have to add in the human element.  Much of what I will be doing is training people to train their dogs.  That will be even more challenging.

So here I am at home now armed with a couple of DVDs to watch over the next week and looking forward to group classes on Wednesday and a ride-along initial consult on Thursday.

Things promise to get much more interesting.