I have aquired my rattlesnake for this months rattlesnake aversion training. If you live on the outskirts of town like scottsdale or cave creek. It is important to have your dogs rattle snake trained. This could save you thousands in vet bill or prevent you from losing your dog. The are comming out this time of year so take care of it now.
I have several appointments in Scottsdale and Cave Creek now that the weather is getting warmer. It is always better to be safe than sorry. There is currently a snake vaccine but unfortunatley it is not very effective yet and it is a lot more costly than training your dog to avoid the potentially deadly animals. RDT services the entire Valley and snake training only takes 1 session please call me to gfet something set up before you have a situation.
We had an excellent dog show this week at Fiesta Cluster which is the largest dog show in the soutwest. The director of the show gave me an award to honor my military service with my K9 orrie. It has been a while since I shed a tear but the award was very thought provoking.
I will be blogging on a regular basis again. The first 11 entries are appointments which will make it into my new book. I have kept track of every dog training appointment I have been to for an entire year and will be releasing the new book in the future.
My morning appointment was with 6 month old GSD “Luger”. His owner had been previously trained by A Canine Academy internationals Joann Bluth. At the end of their training Joanne told mark that the methods she taught him were not the same methods that she had used on her own dog. I’m not sure why anyone would teach something that they did not practice. After evaluation of “Luger” my opinion is that he needs a lot of work. I think that with my methods I will be able to whip him into shape in no time. The owner took to the lesson well and the dog did a good job too.
I only had one appointment today. It was the woman who requested the 15 minute lessons. Again I handled both of her dogs and everything went well. She may have to give up the dog because she believes she may be allergic. She has decided to continue her lessons at a later date,
First appointment this morning was with a young border collie that was almost given away. The customer called me a few days ago to tell me that his wife was at her wits end with the dogs behavior. Apparently she has never had a high energy pup before or any dog for that matter and could not deal with the rough play. I observed and what I saw was normal puppy behavior which can be scary for someone with small kids and no dog experience. The husband did not want to give the dog away and I didn’t feel it was necessary either. I told him that if her biggest concern was the rough play with the children while she is trying to get out the door for her day with the kids then they should consider getting an electronic collar so that she does not have to chase after the dog in order to issue a correction. They seemed to take to the idea pretty well so we will see how this goes. Maybe this pup can stay in its home after all.
I went to see my gold package customer and his beautiful Malanois this morning and the dog is as beautiful as ever. He has the sit down to about 80% with no distractions. We went for our first walk as heel and did ok but needed a little work on the timing. During our walk he realized that my correction was more of a snap and related that he had been pulling instead of snapping. I think this will make a huge difference in the effectiveness of the training. We were supposed to be doing snake aversion next week but I decided that it will be too cold to get an active snake and I do not want the dog to fear me when we transition into protection work. We will wait on the aversion training until the last session.
Louis Robinson
Went to the pound today and when I arrived I realized that I was the only adoptions counselor there. With four people waiting for someone to show dogs. It took me about an hour to get all of the people taken care of and then my help arrived. We continued to be busy throughout the shift and I managed to a total of seven adoptions. While I was on shift I inquired about the status of my coupon distribution and found both locations to be out so I made copies and took them back,
Second appointment with the heel lady and she seems pleased with the progress that is being made and says she has been practicing on her foot like I demonstrated. I’m not certain she was actually doing the exercise because her technique was still off but then again it took me longer than a day to learn it as well. We went for a walk and I handled both dogs at the same time to show her what it looked like.
Went to the pound today and when I arrived I realized that I was the only adoptions counselor there. With four people waiting for someone to show dogs. It took me about an hour to get all of the people taken care of and then my help arrived. We continued to be busy throughout the shift and I managed to a total of seven adoptions. While I was on shift I inquired about the status of my coupon distribution and found both locations to be out so I made copies and took them back,
Second appointment with the heel lady and she seems pleased with the progress that is being made and says she has been practicing on her foot like I demonstrated. I’m not certain she was actually doing the exercise because her technique was still off but then again it took me longer than a day to learn it as well. We went for a walk and I handled both dogs at the same time to show her what it looked like.
One of my group class customers opted to get her last three sessions as private sessions. I visited her and her yellow lab today. She said the dog was out of control but when I arrived all that I observed was normal puppy behavior. She was havening a hard time getting her dog to do basic commands. Upon evaluation of her technique I found several things wrong. Her timing was off the correction was too delicate and the leash was usually tight when she tried to administer a correction. We spent about 40 minutes working on her technique.
Second appointment was with my service dog in the 5th week of training. She had begun complaining about her dogs’ behavior slipping as well so again I did a technique evaluation and found her timing to be off. We went over the timing information presented in the first lesson and got her back on track. She noticed an immediate turnaround in the animals’ behavior which was not surprising to me at all.
My last appointment was group class 3 lesson. Again the timing was wrong and I spent time going over that information again as well as teaching the down command. We spent a good 30 minutes practicing the technique and applied it to the dogs. The dogs all listened to me fine but knew they could get away with not responding to the owners. It was an eye opener for them to see the difference in behavior when I had the leash and the all vowed to work harder at their timing.
Louis Robinson